"The VS-640 opens up a lot of doors," said Roland DG UK technical director Brett Newman. "It's ideal for adding metallic effects to vehicle wraps as the 64in width means you can produce bonnet wraps and other large areas without joins."

Recirculation, as used in the 540MT, is included to "keep the ink alive" by preventing the pigments in the metallic and white inks from settling out.

Customers can choose three specifications for the eight printhead machine. In addition to the CMYK with metallic and white ink it can be supplied with CMYK, light cyan, light magenta and white for high-quality wide gamut applications, or for high throughput, it can be supplied with two sets of CMYK.

It features a new printhead which delivers variable droplet sizes and 1,440dpi is claimed to provide "stunning resolution and quality".

To support the metallic, white and hi-fi colour configurations 4.0 latest version of the VersaWorks RIP uses the Roland Color System for spot colour simulation. It includes a metallic colour library with 512 metallic tones, including golds, silvers and bronzes, which can be integrated with design software.

OnSupport is a new feature that emails status updates to enable unattended operation.

All three versions cost £17,999, including a take-up unit.

The machine will make its European debut at Sign and Digital UK at the NEC, Birmingham, from 13-15 April.