Rolls-Royce Motor Cars is delighted to unveil its first ever Bespoke
Collection that encompasses the marque’s entire family of motor cars.
The announcement chimes with the culmination of a remarkable year that
saw the marque emphatically reaffirm the fact that
Bespoke is Rolls-Royce.
The Suhail Collection is the first Collection to be
offered on Phantom, Ghost and Wraith models, and takes its inspiration
from Suhail, one of the brightest star constellations in the sky. It
celebrates the work of the Arabic scientist considered by many as the
father of theoretical physics and a great influence on Western
scientific thinking.
The unveiling of this very special Collection completes a year
that has seen Rolls-Royce’s Bespoke offer reach new heights of
popularity, creating numerous beautiful and compelling Collection cars
such as Year of the Horse, Pinnacle Travel, Waterspeed, Metropolitan
and Maharajah.
The Suhail CollectionNamed after one of the
brightest constellations in the sky, Suhail and its light is believed
to have inspired the 10th Century Arabic mathematician, astronomer and
physicist Ibn al-Haitham, whose best known work is the
Book of
Optics (Kitab al-Manazir). British-Iraqi physicist, Jim
Al-Khalili, considers al-Haitham to be the "first true
scientist" based on his pioneering work on the scientific method.
Amongst other achievements, Al-Haitham was the first scientist to
realise that light enters the eye rather than leaving it.
His
Book of Optics was translated into Latin in the
13th century and has influenced a number of key Western scientific
thinkers including Roger Bacon, Leonardo Da Vinci, Galileo Galilei and
René Descartes.
“Ibn al-Haitham was a notable pioneer whose scientific
achievements represented a turning point in the history of science. We
felt the Suhail constellation was the perfect inspiration for a very
special Bespoke collection to celebrate his influence on Eastern and
Western science,” said Torsten Müller-Ötvös, Chief Executive Officer,
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars.
A host of elegantly executed touches have been added to the
Rolls-Royce Phantom, Phantom Coupé, Ghost and Wraith to bring the
spirit of Suhail to life in this extraordinary collection. The
exterior of these astronomy-inspired motor cars sparkle in a unique
moonstone pearl colour evoking the colour of the stars at night,
whilst a Suhail star emblem completes a
Turchese Blue
coachline inspired by the colour of the night sky when Suhail is visible.
The interior continues the striking colour scheme by elegantly
combining
Crem
é
Light leather with Turchese accents, framed by a Navy Blue
instrument panel top and carpets. Suhail star emblems are also worked
into the marquetry on the Ash Burr wood fascia, whilst a Starlight
Headliner in the Phantom and Wraith models allows the owner their own
personal moment of stargazing. Finally the Bespoke clock, colour
matched to the interior, depicts the Suhail Ursa Minor and Major
constellation on the clock face.
A year of amazing Bespoke Rolls-RoycesIn
addition to the Suhail Collection, 2014 has seen several beautiful and
compelling Collection cars such as Year of the Horse, Pinnacle Travel,
Waterspeed, Metropolitan and Maharajah created by the Bespoke Design
Studios at the Home of Rolls-Royce in Goodwood, England.
The Bespoke year began with the announcement in January that
Rolls-Royce’s Bespoke team had designed a
Majestic Horse
Ghost to celebrate the Chinese Year of the Horse. Marrying
the Chinese artistic tradition and appreciation of fine
hand-craftsmanship to the very best in contemporary British automotive
design, Majestic Horse offered unique interior and exterior features
including stitched horses in the headrests and rear seat cushions as
well as a painted horse logo on the side and one painted on the wooden dashboard.
April saw the debut of the
Pinnacle Travel
Phantom at the 2014 Beijing Autoshow. This extraordinary
motor car served to showcase the imaginative heights of craftsmanship
and design that emanates from Goodwood, seen through the prism of
modern luxury travel.
Answering this growing interest in luxury travel, especially in
China, the Rolls-Royce Pinnacle Travel Phantom offered a luxuriant
colour palette, opulent, sumptuous materials and complex, beautifully
hand-crafted marquetry evoking the glamour of the golden age of
travelling on luxurious cross-continental trains.
The richness of its main two-tone exterior colour scheme hinted
at the luxury awaiting the traveller inside, whilst a unique coach
line with an abstract motif of a streamlined train travelling at
speed, invited the passenger onboard for a journey of discovery.
This opulent colour scheme continued inside with a sartorial
Morello Red and
Seashell leather combination for
seats, roofliner, pillars and door cards plus specifically developed
Morello Red lambswool floor mats.
A further motif in Smoke Grey thread evoked luxury travel whilst
the
piece de la resistance was 230 individual pieces of
marquetry were painstakingly hand-laid to create a striking motif of a
cross-continental train speeding across a landscape with plumes of
steam left in its wake. The same motif is echoed on the door cards
through 24,633 individual stitches, emphasising the painstaking
craftsmanship required to perfectly match the two details.
In May, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars unveiled the
Phantom
Drophead Coupé Waterspeed Collection, designed to
celebrate Sir Malcolm Campbell’s act of setting a new world
water-speed record on the nearby Lake Maggiore in 1937.
Echoing the cutting-edge technology employed in the construction
of Sir Malcolm Campbell’s Bluebird K3 craft, only the finest
contemporary materials were used to furnish Waterspeed. Brushed steel
perfectly complemented an exclusively developed ‘
Maggiore’
Blue colour scheme whilst hand-crafted Abachi wood inlays evoked
the sense of a boat effortlessly gliding through water at pace, whilst
exterior coachline and laser etchings inside the car brought
Campbell’s ‘Bluebird’ motif back to life.
For the first time in Rolls-Royce history the engine was painted
the same colour as the exterior of the car, resulting in a visually
striking homage to the power behind Campbell’s records, whilst the
Phantom Drophead Coupé’s traditional teak decking to the rear made way
for brushed steel.
Reference to Campbell’s craft was also made through a new
interpretation of Rolls-Royce’s famous ‘power reserve’ dial. As the
driver presses on, the dial moves backwards towards a yellow and blue
zone, echoing K3 ‘going into the blue’ at maximum engine revolutions.
Direct tribute to the records was paid in the glovebox, with a
hand-embroidered panel expressing the records Campbell achieved at
Lake Maggiore, Lake Helwel and Coniston Water in K3 and K4.
September’s Salon de l’Automobile in Paris was the appropriate
venue for Rolls-Royce Motor Cars next Collection car.
Phantom Metropolitan
Collection paid homage to the world’s great
metropolises through the most complex application of marquetry ever
undertaken by Rolls-Royce. When open, Phantom’s signature picnic
tables presented occupants with an elevated view of the city, created
through the expert application of 500 individual wood veneer pieces.
Indeed, the process of hand-cutting, colouring, shaping and
applying is so complex these unique objects d’art take an expert wood
craftsperson several days to complete. On closing the tables, a
different perspective of the cityscape was offered – reflecting the
view one gets when effortlessly travelling in the rear of a Phantom.
The cityscape theme extended beyond Phantom’s many wood
surfaces. A specially developed
Aetherius Grey leather colour
was created to echo the colour palette of the modern city whilst 6,800
two-tone stitches to the central rear seat flutes depicted an abstract
image of a skyscraper. A specially developed Bespoke clock extended
the theme to the front of the car. For the first time in the marque’s
history, a rotating bezel expressing 24 of the great cities of the
world and their time zones – Paris included – adorned the central
console of a Rolls-Royce motor car.
The most recent Bespoke RollsRoyce, the oneofakind
Maharaja Phantom Drophead Coupé was unveiled this
November. Inspired by the Golden Age of the Raja, this beautiful model
was conceptualised and handcrafted in honour of India’s affinity with
the superluxury marque.
100 years ago, India’s Princes and Maharajas collectively
engaged in what is described as one of the world’s longest
relationships with one automobile manufacturer. Over a period of five
decades, the Maharajas purchased over 840 unique RollsRoyce motor
cars pushing the maker of the ‘Best Car in the World’ to unprecedented
levels of design, engineering and luxury. RollsRoyce Motor Cars is
recreating that golden age of India’s motoring heritage though a
collection of Bespoke vehicles inspired by the Maharajas’ cars.
A host of subtle touches have been added to the RollsRoyce
Phantom Coupé to bring the Golden Age of the Raja alive. The exterior
dazzles in a
Carrara White colour, with a Peacock emblem, the
national bird of India, completing an
Emerald Green
coachline. A
Deep Green hood retracts to reveal a beautiful
deck with a Peacock emblem integrated into the marquetry – a perfect
complement to the Peacock detail on the exterior. The interior
continues the striking colour theme by elegantly combining Crème Light
leather with
Emerald Green accents, which is complemented by
marquetry inlay on the facia panel top and arm rests.
More elaborate Peacock emblems can be found embroidered into the
headrests in
Emerald Green and
Cobalto Blue, as well
as a Peacock feather pattern in Seashell stitching on the side and
central armrests. A Bespoke Maharaja Peacock clock complements the
interior colours with
Cobalto Blue and pure Jade elements.
These limited Collections serve to inspire customers, with
record levels of Bespoke demand reported in September 2014. Nearly
every Phantom across the globe, 90% of Wraith and 80% of Ghost family
motor cars were commissioned by customers with some element of Bespoke
design. Bespoke is Rolls-Royce.
