Rolls-Royce has undertaken yet another foray into exotic, off-the-beaten track materiality. The new Rolls-Royce Phantom Hummingbird, unveiled today, is the latest Private Commission from the company’s Bespoke division, along the lines of the recent Phantom Dragon and the Phantom Goldfinger.
The familiar motif
It’s a patient, deep-pocketed customer who chooses to indulge themselves in all that Rolls-Royce Bespoke has to offer. For a start, craft takes time, as does the process of ensuring that new finishes and surfaces can be made sufficiently safe and durable for use in an automotive environment. These cars should be considered closer in spirit to one-off superyacht commissions, where every facet of the design is effectively a prototype made real.
The Phantom Hummingbird has two tone bodywork
The Phantom Hummingbird is no different. You all know what a Phantom looks like, which is why the images here focus on the interior processes and not the imperious bodywork (even though it does look rather impressive in a two-tone mix of Wildberry and White Sands, along with a hand-applied White Sands Coachline and hummingbird rendering along the flanks).
The hummingbird motif on the coachline
The innovation here is the use of iridescent abalone shells to create the marquetry patterns across the interior of the car, the first time these sea snail shells have been used in a Rolls-Royce. The shifting, iridescent surface is used to evoke the plumage of a hummingbird, images of which are inlaid in each rear seat picnic table.
The hummingbird inlaid in the rear picnic table
In addition, the rear centre Waterfall section also uses a mix of mother and pearl as the basis of a unique botanical pattern. As Phil Fabre de la Grange, head of Bespoke at Rolls-Royce, explains, ‘our clients continually invite us to explore that inspiration in new and unexpected ways, as this remarkable Private Commission so perfectly demonstrates. The introduction of abalone shell into Rolls-Royce marquetry presented our designers and craftspeople with a fresh creative and technical challenge.’
The floral motif on the rear waterfall section, inlaid into the Ash Burr veneer
The car was commissioned as a present for the client’s wife, a project handled through the company’s Private Office Dubai. It’s projects like this that maintain Rolls-Royce’s rarefied status; it took nine months to develop the process and application, with each hummingbird formed from 53 laser-cut pieces of abalone and mother-of-pearl. Each piece was cut, hand filed and reduced in thickness to allow for seamless application, giving the car the same aura as a piece of heirloom furniture.
Detail of the floral motif in abalone and mother-of-pearl
The wood surround is Ash Burr veneer, along with pieces of Silver Birch to supplement the bird and flower design. They’re paired with Creme Light leather with Moccasin and Tan detailing and everything sparkles beneath the familiar Rolls-Royce Starlight Headliner.
Seat details in the Phantom Hummingbird
There’s a lot of debate right now about contemporary craftsmanship and how volume brands are looking to get in on the act and upgrade their interior quality through techniques, materials and processes that mimic traditional crafted surfaces.
Make no mistake, Rolls-Royce still demonstrates what craft really means, not some ersatz approximation of bespoke. After all, craft is skill multiplied by time, and it’s only at this rarefied level that the investment and ability exists to make such things come true.
Rolls-RoyceMotorCars.com, @RollsRoyceCars