Within the Home of Rolls-Royce, world-class craftspeople bring a wealth of experience, skill, creativity and attention to detail to their work. These artisans, together with the marque’s Bespoke designers and engineers, form what is known as the Bespoke Collective. This talented and passionate group of people is constantly pushing boundaries in their quest for perfection, bringing clients’ dreams to life.
The Home of Rolls-Royce at Goodwood in West Sussex is the only place in the world where Rolls-Royce motor cars – Spectre, Cullinan, Ghost (their Black Badge counterparts) Phantom, and Coachbuild masterpieces – are designed and built by hand. No two motor cars are entirely alike – every Rolls-Royce is hand-crafted to the client’s individual taste. It takes more than 600 hours to build a Rolls-Royce motor car. Complex commissions can take up to four years to develop and construct. These cherished and enduring motor cars will go on to form part of celebrated collections and frequently stay within the same family for generations. Indeed, around two-thirds of all Rolls‑Royce motor cars ever built are still on the road.
Within the Home of Rolls-Royce, world-class craftspeople bring a wealth of experience, skill, creativity and attention to detail to their work. These artisans, together with the marque’s Bespoke designers and engineers, form what is known as the Bespoke Collective. This talented and passionate group of people is constantly pushing boundaries in their quest for perfection, bringing clients’ dreams to life. They are guided by the famous maxim of the marque’s co-founder, Sir Henry Royce: ‘Strive for perfection in everything you do. Take the best that exists and make it better. When it does not exist, design it.’ In doing so, they create something deeply personal, meaningful and emotionally resonant for each client.
Exterior Surface Centre
Every Rolls-Royce begins its journey in the Exterior Surface Centre, where the signature Rolls-Royce paint finish is created. Clients can choose from a palette of 44,000 exterior colours and if they prefer a hue that does not exist within that range, the Rolls-Royce Bespoke Collective can develop a new Bespoke colour that will then be reserved for the client’s exclusive use.
Rolls-Royce specialists have previously colour-matched clients’ favourite flowers, a beloved pet’s eyes, precious jewels and antique items to name only a few sources of inspiration. The Bespoke Collective has also developed unique iridescent finishes inspired by the aurora borealis, the farthest reaches of space, specific oceans and colours that capture the flora and fauna of destinations around the world, which have a personal meaning to the commissioning client. Specially developed Bespoke colours often influence how clients curate their other precious possessions: for example, some clients have requested that their yachts and private jets are colour-matched to their Rolls-Royce.
Depending on the complexity of the paint, the finish may require up to 20 individual layers of lacquer. To achieve the signature piano finish, a Rolls-Royce is hand-polished to brilliance over four hours. The selected paint colour can also be complemented with a crystal lacquer with iridescent shimmer, adding depth and lustre to the colour.
Clients can commission unique artworks on the bonnet or a coachline, hand-applied by a skilled team of artisans. A coachline is applied by hand using a fine brush made from natural materials. The coachline is precisely 3mm wide on Phantom, Cullinan and Ghost, and 4mm wide on Spectre due to its particular proportions. The exterior can be complemented with a unique coachline motif – a small artwork such as a flower, a family crest or a geometric pattern.
Interior trim centre: exquisite craft
Clients are able to commission not only leather, but fabric interiors as well, recalling the early years of Rolls-Royce, where passenger seats were upholstered with various precious textiles. Many of the processes used today blend cutting-edge precision machinery with the skilled hands and experienced eyes of Rolls-Royce craftspeople.
Leather
Each hide that arrives at Rolls-Royce is examined by hand and eye under high-intensity lighting to reveal imperfections. Areas deemed unsuitable for use are marked with chalk. The marked hide is placed under a cutting machine where an outline of each part required to construct the interior is laser projected onto the material and then cut. A special algorithm was developed to analyse the chalked areas and generate a pattern excluding the marked areas. Artisans manually adjust and further perfect the cutting pattern to maximise the use of leather, excluding the marked areas.
Each leather part is thinned or ‘skived’ to reduce its thickness from around 1.5 millimetres to 0.6 millimetres, enabling a smaller, neater seam. Leather parts are sewn by skilled craftspeople by hand using high-precision sewing machines, and are completed with contrast stitching or piping, depending on the client’s request. Finally, the leather parts are fitted to a component – a task which can only be done by hand, due to the curves and contours of these parts.
Perforated Leather
Clients can request that leather seats include Placed Perforation – artworks created through tiny perforations in the leather which vary in size to create the perception of depth, allowing detailed and seemingly three-dimensional graphics to be achieved. This innovative, contemporary craft technique was first developed for a Bespoke commission before being made more widely available with Cullinan Series II and Ghost Series II in 2024, when designers developed a pattern inspired by the shapes and shadows of the clouds over the Home of Rolls-Royce at Goodwood. It comprises up to 107,000 0.8- and 1.2-millimetre perforations.
Clients can also commission a Bespoke Placed Perforation motif, which is then reserved for their exclusive use.
Exploration of Textiles
In its Goodwood era, Rolls-Royce began exploring the use of textiles in 2015 during the development of Phantom Serenity, which used embroidered silk for the interior. Since then, a number of materials have been used, including rayon fabric made from bamboo, silk blends and even glass organza.
For Cullinan Series II and Ghost Series II, a fabric interior is now available as a prêt-à-porter offer. For these motor cars, Rolls-Royce specialists developed a rayon fabric made from bamboo named Duality Twill. It is embroidered with an artistic ‘Duality’ graphic, based on an abstract interpretation of the two interlinked R initials of the marque’s founders. A Duality Twill interior can incorporate up to 2.2 million stitches requiring 11 miles of thread, and is the product of 20 hours of construction. To ensure uniformity in the pattern, each piece is individually crafted before being cut using a specially developed laser that seals the material’s edge and mitigates individual threads becoming loose. Once all panels are carefully positioned and stitched together to create a seamless whole, they are used to upholster the seating. The base twill textile is available in three colours – Lilac, Chocolate and Black – and the thread is available in 51 different hues, allowing clients to tailor their design according to their personal preference, creating a bold contrasting effect or a subtle monochrome.
Bespoke Embroidery and Hand-painting
Clients are offered near-limitless opportunities to create complex works of art using their interior as a canvas. From their initials applied to the headrests to million-stitch embroideries, embroidery depicting the surface of the moon, Bespoke embossed graphics, hand-painted artworks using leather as a canvas and even three-dimensional embroidery, the possibilities are limited only by the client’s imagination.
Interior Surface Centre
For many years, the Interior Surface Centre was known simply as the Woodshop. Its current designation reflects the major changes that this department has undergone in recent years. Wood remains its primary medium, but the specialist craftspeople are also skilled in working with carbon fibre, metal and a diverse range of lacquered, painted and embellished ‘hard’ surface finishes.
Veneers
The visible wood elements in a Rolls-Royce motor car are made using veneers – thin sheets of wood that are bonded to a substructure. All veneer parts used in any single motor car come from the same tree, with colours, patterns and grains that give the motor car its own unique ‘fingerprint’ that cannot be precisely replicated again. This also ensures all wood parts age consistently – an important consideration, as many Rolls-Royce motor cars are lovingly handed down through the generations.
Clients can select from around 30 different wood types, with different stains, overlays, and treatments offering a wide range of additional effects. Clients can also ask Rolls-Royce to source a different tree species, which may have a particular personal resonance to them, so long as the species is not restricted or endangered.
On arrival at the Home of Rolls-Royce, all veneers are transferred to the richly scented Humidor, where they are stored for a minimum of three days at a constant 23°C and 75% humidity. Humidity is essential to prevent the wood from cracking and to keep it flexible enough to take the complex forms for which Rolls-Royce wood components are renowned.
Almost every veneer part begins life in the Veneer Preparation area, where specialists align the grains and patterns to create a single, perfect line running through the motor car. Straight-grained woods like Royal Walnut (Juglans nigra) are matched in a chevron pattern at a precise 55° angle. Complex patterned woods such as Burr Walnut (Juglans regia) are laid so they form a book-matched mirror image, with the edges trimmed and sanded by hand for a precise fit. The matched veneer pieces are then bonded and pressed into larger sheets, from which all the parts for the motor car are precision-cut using a laser.
Each veneered part is made up of several layers, interleaved with bonded sheets and joined under heat and pressure to create a multi-layered surface with the strength and integrity to allow further work. The veneer is bonded in a heavy press to a carrier part, made of cast aluminium or composite material. All veneers are tested at high and low temperatures to ensure they will remain stable once installed in the finished motor car, regardless of the operating conditions.
The part then reaches Veneer Finessing, where skilled craftspeople eliminate any blemishes in the veneer. They do this by cutting tiny, precisely colour-matched slivers of the same veneer used in the part itself with a scalpel, then bond them in place of the blemish and seal them with a hot plate.
After Veneer Finessing, all parts are manually sanded using an orbital sander. Knowing how much of the wood surface to remove is a matter of experience and requires a good eye and a steady hand. Delicate features like apertures for instruments are hand-sanded with sandpaper.
Before progressing to the lacquering stage, each piece receives its final inspection. A highly experienced craftsperson applies a wash-over that temporarily imitates the final lacquered finish, enabling them to find any remaining imperfections on the surface. Everything is examined by eye: there is no technology involved. If any defects emerge, the part will be sent back to Veneer Finessing for further work.
In the final process, multiple layers of lacquer (each only 0.3mm thick) are applied to the veneered parts. Each layer is allowed to dry for around 20 minutes, although this will vary depending on temperature, atmospheric pressure and other factors. With all the layers applied, the part will show a slight ‘orange peel’ effect on the surface. To eliminate this, the part is sanded back and then polished to a deep, mirror shine. Open-pore finishes, where the grain and texture are exposed to create a tactile sensation, are finished with a specially developed matte sealant.
To expand the possibilities for individualisation even further, the Interior Trim Centre team is constantly working on the development of design veneers, which are hand-crafted using natural wood, often combined with other materials. These innovative veneers can incorporate and create unique designs, such as wave patterns achieved by using specialised pressing techniques, or by including metals, like copper. The current design veneer palette includes Obsidian Ayous, Linea Silver Birch and Dark Amber, with several more in development.
These veneers are made by layering and pressing natural veneer sheets into a solid block of wood at high pressure, before cutting it into thin layers, each 0.5mm thick, which are then used to create the Rolls-Royce interior parts.
Carbon Fibre
For Black Badge motor cars, Rolls-Royce has developed technical carbon finishes that add to the bold identity of this family of motor cars. Thin leaves woven from resin-coated carbon fibre and contrasting metal-coated thread laid in a diamond pattern are applied by hand to the components in perfect alignment, creating a three-dimensional effect. To secure this veneer, each component is cured for one hour under pressure at 100°C. This is then sand-blasted to create a keyed surface for six layers of lacquer, which is hand-sanded and polished before being incorporated into the motor car.
Bespoke
The Interior Surface Centre has brought many significant Bespoke commissions to life using specialised and traditional techniques including marquetry (the art of creating a picture using wood inlay), parquetry (which creates geometrical patterns), sandblasting, staining, painting, and infusion with precious materials. Requests include parquetry that depicts rose petals falling to the ground (a commission wherein 1,603 individual wood pieces were used), marquetry comprising over 320 lasered and hand-placed pieces, complex painting that mimics the patterns of cracked ice, elaborate mother-of-pear inlay, steel and gold plating inlays, paying homage to Italian Riviera, emerald embellishment to the fascia and even an exact replication of a client’s child’s footprint applied to the dashboard.
Celestial Interplay: The Starlight Headliner
The Starlight Headliner is a spellbinding Bespoke feature, iconic and exclusive to Rolls-Royce. The ‘stars’ are optical fibres, each inserted by hand into an individually hand-placed perforation. Between 800 and 1,600 ‘stars’ are fitted, depending on the design and model of motor car. Fibre optic strands are delicately placed at varying depths and at different angles. This allows light to escape in multiple directions and at different intensities, faithfully replicating the night sky.
The constellation of each Starlight Headliner is created by hand. Clients can commission a personalised design with specific constellations to mark significant occasions such as birthdays or anniversaries: by carefully placing each ‘star’, Bespoke specialists can replicate the night sky over a specific location at a precise moment. Some clients have requested maps, monograms and other designs. The Starlight Headliner can be completed with a Shooting Star or a twinkling effect.
Typically, a Starlight Headliner takes nine hours to create, but a personalised pattern can take more than 17 hours to hand-craft.
Gallery Clean Room
Phantom offers an unprecedented opportunity to exhibit works of art within the motor car itself – a space called the Gallery. Unique to Phantom, it represents an uninterrupted glass enclosure that spans the full width of the motor car’s fascia. To install these artworks, the Gallery Clean Room has been built, ensuring a sterile environment in which pieces are safely and meticulously assembled and fitted.
Only two associates are permitted to enter at any one time. To avoid contamination, cosmetics, hair products and deodorant are not permitted; medical-grade, lint-free surgical clothing must also be worn at all times. Non-powdered latex gloves have been sourced specifically to ensure moisture generated from perspiration is completely contained within the glove. All Galleries undergo an ultra-violet light examination before final assembly.
While many Gallery commissions remain confidential, Rolls-Royce has created and installed a multitude of unique works of art that showcase the boundless potential of the Gallery and the unique skill of the Bespoke Collective. These include: handwoven and hand-painted silk compositions; marquetry masterpieces made from thousands of individually set pieces of veneer; complex leather embroideries comprising over 90,000 individual stitches; artworks inspired by the Spirit of Ecstasy, capturing the movement of silk under water, in solid milled aluminium; a three-dimensional orchid design made from silk; hand-painted artwork created by a Rolls-Royce artisan reinterpreting the dragon form; and solid aluminium compositions with finely-grained ceramic finish, and many more.
Epilogue
Rolls-Royce’s unwavering commitment to craft is reflected in the marque’s ongoing investment in highly skilled artisans, innovative designers and engineers, exquisite materials and advanced manufacturing tools and facilities. Furthermore, the marque has secured planning permission for a significant extension to the Home at Goodwood, West Sussex, with the express aim of creating more space for Bespoke craft and technologies to grow.
In bringing its clients’ increasingly complex and diverse Bespoke visions and dreams to life, the marque secures its status as a true House of Luxury that will resonate with the world’s most distinguished super-luxury clientele for generations to come.
SOURCE: Rolls-Royce
