The Rolls-Royce Phantom Hummingbird is a one-off worth shelling out for
The one-off Phantom Hummingbird features the first use of abalone shell marquetry in a Rolls-Royce car
If you’re considerably richer than everyone else, it isn’t enough to simply buy a Rolls-Royce. For the ultimate statement of wealth, you need to commission a one-off like this Rolls-Royce Phantom Hummingbird.
“Curated” by Rolls’ Private Office Dubai, it was commissioned as a tribute to a client’s wife with an avian theme, but the materials used for the bespoke hummingbird decorations are of marine origin.
The Phantom Hummingbird is the first Rolls-Royce car to feature abalone shell marquetry. For the uninitiated, the abalone is a sea snail, which might not conjure up aesthetically pleasing images, but its shell is something rather special. In Rolls-Royce’s words, the shell is “prized for its extraordinary natural iridescence: the nacreous inner surface of the shell produces a hallmark blue-green lustre when it interacts with light.”
Something else that’s known for its iridescence is the plumage of the hummingbird, making abalone shell the ideal material to represent it in the Phantom, with some mother-of-pearl included for good measure.
The picnic tables feature hummingbird motifs, each made from 53 pieces of abalone shell and mother-of-pearl, 18 of which are for the wings. There’s also a botanical motif made from 84 pieces on the ‘Rear Waterfall’ panel, which is positioned between the rear seats.
The whole project was developed over nine months, and it was a particular challenge for Roll-Royce’s Bespoke Collective craftspeople to learn to work with such a notoriously brittle material. Each piece of shell was laser cut 0.06mm larger than was needed, allowing each to be gently hand-shaped before application.
All three of the marquetry panels are backed onto ash burr veneer, and there’s also silver birch cut from a single log, which was “selected and then minutely examined to ensure its grain pattern complemented the composition,” Rolls-Royce says.
The seats are trimmed in Creme Light leather with Moccasin and Tan accents, while the carpets are ‘Seashell’. Finishing off the interior is Rolls-Royce’s famous ‘Starlight Headliner’ with thousands of tiny lights to give the appearance of the night sky.
Moving to the outside, there’s a two-tone paint finish featuring Wildberry at the top and White Sands along the bottom. There’s also a White Sands coachline, into which a painted hummingbird motif is integrated.
As a one-off commission, there’s inevitably no mention of how much all of this cost. We’d hazard a guess that the price is a figure best described as ‘a lot’.
Did you know you can sell your car through Auto Express? We’ll help you get a great price and find a great deal on a new car, too.
