Rolls-Royce Bespoke Presents An Imaginative Collection Of Unique Luxury Cars In 2021

Hidden cyphers and codes are concealed in the design, ready to be discovered for a prize. Adventurer George Eyston’s 1938 record-breaking Thunderbolt inspires the Dawn and Wraith’s starry skied headliner. A collaboration with Hermès features the French atelier and Pierre Péron’s timeless horse motif. These are just some of the quirky creations in the 2021 Rolls-Royce Bespoke Collection.

Despite a chaotic world of pandemic highs and lows and climate worries, last year was a mighty successful one for Rolls-Royce as the company reported deliveries of 5,586 motor cars — almost all of which would have undergone some personal tailoring. It’s not surprising. As the luxury space heads ever more towards a landscape of individual expressions where product (on this grand luxurious level) have to deliver so much more — be unique, timeless, experiential — customers are turning to Rolls-Royce Bespoke for inspiration. “Our artisans continue to further the realm of bespoke feasibility,” says chief executive Torsten Müller Ötvös, “while precious and rare materials are used with ingenuity.”

 BENEDICT CAMPBELL FOR ROLLS-ROYCE

Earlier in the year, Rolls revealed its most unique of objects. Hand built, the $28 million Boat Tail is a truly sensory feast with the nautical-inspired motor car’s long silhouette appearing as a singular clear surface. At the rear, in a gesture inspired by the cantilever concepts of architect Santiago Calatrava, at a press of a button the deck opens in a sweeping butterfly form to reveal an intricate hosting suite replete with a handsome champagne chest. The final theater comes curtesy of cocktail tables that open on either side of the deck providing access to a set of stools designed specially by Italian maker Promemoria. The Boat Tail is all about these unexpected pleasures — arousing our sense of wonder. And it looks incredible.

 ROLLS-ROYCE MOTOR CARS

Meanwhile in the Rolls-Royce Bespoke Collection, one of the 2021 highlights that certainly got me intrigued is the Wraith Kryptos Collection. Here hidden cyphers are embedded in the design language of the car. To the untrained eye, the cues can appear to be simple aesthetic features, yet for those in the know, there is a code embedded here that can be solved for a prize. The race to crack the crypto code is on since no one (at the time of writing) has solved it.

Elsewhere, Rolls-Royce teamed up with architect Kengo Kuma to create a unique Dawn. The car was designed for The Kita, a new luxury residence in Tokyo by Kuma. The car’s exterior is rendered in Silver Haze, a complex shade to reflect the silver/grey of the building’s façade. The sun adds a bronze sheen to the hue which is mirrored by the detailing on the exterior and interior, while natural open pore walnut paneling in the rear deck mirrors that of the Kita penthouse entrance lobby.

 ROLLS-ROYCE MOTOR CARS

The Phantom Oribe is a lovely collaboration with the House of Hermès. The client is a Japanese entrepreneur who asked for his motor car to feature a unique two-tone exterior finish inspired by his collection of ancient Oribe ware Japanese ceramics. Meanwhile, the interior is finished in Hermès Enea Green leather, and the French marque’s “Toile H” canvas adorns the door armrests, center and rear consoles and headliner. Finally, the Phantom gallery that runs the length of the car’s facia, sees artwork depicting the atelier’s famous horse motif, thus paying homage to the work of Pierre Péron, the illustrator and one of the creators of Hermès scarves.

OLI TENNENT FOR ROLLS-ROYCE

Meanwhile, the Rolls-Royce Urban Sanctuary is a new addition to the Ghost Extended. The geometric mosaic wood elements, finished in an un-lacquered open-pore Obsidian Ayous veneer, recall the wooden window shutters on the pavilion building within Shanghai’s famous Yu Gardens. There are embroidered panels on the seat inserts resembling cracked ice, while the seats are swathed in cashmere with hues to reflect nature. And since the longer wheelbase Ghost is envisaged as a sanctuary-on-wheels, the reclining seats have specially-made calf rests.

 ROLLS-ROYCE MOTOR CARS

One of the most indulgent requests must be from an American collector who made a personal request to the bespoke division, asking them to adapt the illuminated facia on his Rolls-Royce Ghost to say “Dream” rather than “Ghost”. He wrote: “This wish speaks of the dream I had as a young boy, born under the beautiful night sky in 1983 in Vero Beach, Florida, the dream I instil in those around me every day and the dream I hope my spirit carries on to the world when I’m gone.” Meanwhile inside on the headliner, for a further personal touch the crafts people worked with 1,236 fiber optic lights to recreate the astronomical alignment of the stars over Vero Beach on the day the client was born.

 ROLLS-ROYCE MOTOR CARS

Finally, on yet another star-studded trip, the Rolls-Royce Landspeed Collection are 25 examples of the Black Badge Dawn and 35 Black Badge Wraith motor cars. The inspiration is George Eyston’s adventurous life and his Thunderbolt which, at Bonneville Salt Flats, set his third and final world land speed record earning him the fastest man on earth title. On the Black Badge, the starlight headliner recreate the skies as they appeared over the Flats on that winning night on 16 September 1938. The constellations are precisely marked using 2,117 individually placed fiber optic “stars” — the largest number achieved by Rolls-Royce Bespoke.

via Forbes