LONDON: The Phantom Hummingbird is the first Rolls-Royce in history with abalone shell marquetry.
The Phantom Extended Private Commission was conceived in tribute to a client’s wife and brought to life through the marque's Private Office Dubai.
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars says this Private Commission incorporates marquetry created with the abalone shell, prized for its extraordinary natural iridescence: the nacreous inner surface of the shell produces a hallmark blue-green lustre when it interacts with light.
Here, the material is combined with mother-of-pearl to depict the shimmering feathers of a hummingbird.
A hand-painted hummingbird completes the exterior Coachline.
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars head of bespoke Phil Fabre de la Grange said, "The natural world has always been a rich source of inspiration for Rolls-Royce Bespoke commissions, offering extraordinary forms and colours for our designers and craftspeople to interpret."
"The introduction of abalone shell into Rolls-Royce marquetry presented our designers and craftspeople with a fresh creative and technical challenge, resulting in an elegant tribute to the hummingbird’s mesmerising presence,” he added.
The delicate marquetry unfolds across two distinct compositions.
A hummingbird takes flight on each Picnic Table, each formed from 53 individual pieces of abalone shell and mother-of-pearl – 18 pieces are contained within the wings alone.
A botanical motif of 84 pieces unfurls on the Rear Waterfall panel, set between the two rear seats.
Developed over more than nine months, the composition asked a great deal of the material and the craftspeople who had to learn how to work with it: abalone shell is unusually fine and brittle.
The final process required craftspeople to first reduce the thickness of the pearl and abalone, so that each fragment could be set gently but firmly into place, before being lacquered.
Every piece of abalone shell and mother-of-pearl is laser-cut 0.06mm larger than its final size to allow for the laser’s own burn margin, then filed to its precise shape by hand.
The colour palette of the interior suite has been carefully curated to complement the pioneering abalone marquetry.
Ash Burr veneer forms the background across all three marquetry panels; Silver Birch appears within the Picnic Table motifs, playing an integral part within the design and cut entirely from a single log which was selected and then minutely examined to ensure its grain pattern complemented the composition.
Seating is trimmed in Creme Light leather with Moccasin and Tan detailing, set against Seashell carpets beneath a Starlight Headliner.
Echoing the interior theme, the lower body is presented in Wildberry with the upper body in White Sands; the two-tone division traced by a hand-applied White Sands Coachline, in which a hummingbird takes flight along the generous length of the motor car.
