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Diamonds are Porsche Paint’s New Friend

Friday, June 1, 2012

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Just in time for gifting grads and Dads, Porsche has out-blinged the automotive world with a new coating made from—wait for it—crushed diamonds.

A world first, the “Genuine Diamond Coating” is the latest offering from German tuner Gemballa, which designs all manner of performance packages for Porsche.

Gemballa

Yes, the coating uses real crushed diamonds, company officials say. And no, they won’t tell you what it costs.

This ain’t metallic flakes or cubic zirconia. The coating is literally infused with pulverized diamonds, to create a perfect sparkling interior or exterior finish for that new $50,000 Boxster or $126,000 911 Turbo.

‘We Really Mean It’

“When Gemballa speaks of diamonds, we really mean it,” says CEO Andreas Schwarz. “Our complex process uses genuine diamonds as its key ingredient—not metal pigments, glass fragments or crystals.”

The coating requires the painstaking grinding of diamonds to precision specifications: small enough to use in paint but large enough for facets to catch the light. The process works in shades of gray and white paint, the company says.

Gemballa will not disclose the cost of the finish, say how many carats the process requires, or show the coating on a full-size car.

‘Full of Stars’

Car bloggers gave the innovation a mixed welcome.

“My God, it’s full of stars,” gushed Yahoo Autos.

Topspeed.com said the coating “could be one of the flashiest, gaudiest, and downright most expensive new aftermarket products.”

The price—whatever it is—raised a lot of eyebrows.

“I can guarantee you that this diamond finish is one of those ‘if you have to ask, you can’t afford it’ types of things,” wrote Slashgear.com’s Shane McGlaun.

Jalopnik.com called the coating “the next innovation in ridiculously expensive and hardly necessary automotive modifications.”

But Australia’s PC & Tech Authority may have put it best:

“It’s unlikely that a gem-slathered car will have higher levels of protection, but would you really want to roll around in a car whose paint job is more expensive than the car itself? Probably not.”