Bugatti Builds a Self-Leveling Carbon Fiber Pool Table for Its Yacht-Owning Clients
Is your yacht rocking too much to hold a game of pool in the middle of the ocean? Here’s a $300,000 solution.
The problem of billiard balls rolling around at sea, clearly, is a common one that the free market needs to address. Fortunately for those of you privileged enough to have encountered this problem, it already has, strangely via Bugatti, maker of hypercars and hideous furniture. Bugatti's self-leveling pool table breaks the mold for branded car company accessories, however, in the sense that it's actually kind of cool.
Made in partnership with the Spanish composites artisans of IXO, Bugatti's branded pool table is constructed from a frame of machined aluminum and titanium before being wrapped in carbon fiber. Its ball pockets are hewn from stainless steel and secured with titanium fasteners and lined in leather, while the side drawers have brushed, anodized aluminum paneling. Each table comes with a small, machined-aluminum box that in its plush leather insides houses a USB drive containing photos and video of the table's manufacturing process.
To make the pool table usable at sea, IXO fit the table with a gyroscopic sensor linked to servo motors in each leg, which can adjust table height every five milliseconds to counteract the motion of the ocean and maintain a level playfield. Bugatti says this playfield "meets the standards of a professional tournament pool table," which Legacy Billiards defines as an approximately nine-foot table with a 50- by 100-inch play area.
Because endangered animal bone isn't exotic enough a material for owners of a Bugatti pool table, the carmaker will also sell its clients cues made from carbon fiber with anodized aluminum caps, and a black anodized aluminum box just to house cue chalk. Both can be stored on a rack of—you guessed it—carbon fiber, which has a 13-inch touchscreen to track scores. Even the pool balls themselves can be coddled in a Bugatti seat-leather suitcase, just in case you're some weirdo who travels with sets of billiard balls instead of, like, family or friends.
IXO and Bugatti will offer only 30 self-leveling pool tables, just five of which will be built this year. Running the equivalent of $300,000, they aren't for those with shallow pockets—or those who play games of billiards less frequently than they pay taxes.
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