A decent house on the beach. A couple of Lamborghinis or Ferraris. A night with circa 1993 Demi Moore . These are all things you can get for less than the cost of the new Rampant surf board by Roy Stuart. At $1.3 million, it's easily the most expensive surfboard in the world, and if you're seriously into surfing, it might not be overpriced.

The overarching premise behind Rampant is the notion of designing a surfboard without any limitations on materials, size, or (obviously) cost. To that end, you can think of the entire surfboard as an exercise in hydrodynamics: this board is built with the singular purpose of gliding on the water with as little resistance as possible.

The shape of the fins is crucial. The serrated fin slices through the water while giving you extra control, while the round fin actually creates a vortex of water that reduces drag immensely. What's that mean in English? It means you can hit speeds approaching 40 mph. On a surfboard that's pretty goddamn fast.

That whole thing about no limits on materials? The board's actually hollow, with a shell made from very hard Far East Asian Paulownia wood that's then covered in a much more beautiful wood from New Zealand, with added reinforcement from high-strength polycarbonate supports. (These are where your costs are associated.)

Of course, there's a 23-karat gold leaf (one ounce: $1,221.83) lion on the board, because for a million bucks, why on Earth wouldn't there be?



Aaron Miller is the Rides editor for Supercompressor. He doesn't surf, but that's only because his balance sucks and he lives 24 hours (driving 85 mph nonstop) from the nearest beach.