Home of Rolls-Royce Collection makes debut at the Quail

Sat, 17 Aug 2013

Rolls-Royce is marking 10 years of production at its Goodwood, England home, with the aptly named Home of Rolls-Royce Collection. The first instance of the Collection, a brilliantly appointed Phantom, has come to The Quail to make its world debut.

The goal of the Home of Rolls-Royce Collection seems to be to really showcase the kind of pristine, detailed work that the artisans back in Goodood are capable off, while creating a car that almost instantly achieves heirloom status. The Phantom seen here displays a truly impressive wood paneled cabin, where a technique called marquetry has been used to inlay some 170 sections of 11 different types of wood into a "celebration" motif.

You'll find a compass theme throughout the car as well – inside and out – which the company tells us is meant to highlight the sales of Goodwood-built Rollers on five continents across the world. Compass designs can be found on the armrests and center console, with each piece of embroidery taking more than 100,000 stitches to create. Not to be outdone in terms of time lavished, the compass motif painted on the exterior of the car takes one squirrel-hair-brush-wielding craftsman six hours to perfectly apply.

Rolls-Royce wasn't so gauche as to include a price for the custom Phantom in its press release (if you have to ask, and all that), but it hardly needs to be said that the special edition car will ring up for considerably more than $400K point-of-entry price.

HOME OF ROLLS-ROYCE COLLECTION DEBUTS AT QUAIL

On 1 January 2013,Rolls-Royce Motor Cars celebrated 10 years of production at the Home of Rolls-Royce in Goodwood, England. To mark this latest chapter in the marque's 109-year history, the very first vehicle of a special collection of Ghost and Phantom family models, conceived and designed by the Rolls-Royce Bespoke team, will be unveiled this month.

The first Home of Rolls-Royce Collection car will make its world debut at Quail, A Motorsports Gathering on Friday 16 August at 10.00 am in the form of a timeless Phantom Series II saloon.

The Home of Rolls-Royce Collection celebrates the meticulous design, engineering and craftsmanship employed in the production of every car that leaves Goodwood.

"The Home of Rolls-Royce Collection showcases what makes Goodwood a unique centre of manufacturing excellence," said Torsten Müller-Ötvös, Chief Executive Officer, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. "A perfect blend of traditional crafts, cutting-edge technology and world-class Bespoke design has driven our success over our first 10 years. In this time, Rolls-Royce has taken its place as creator of the world's pinnacle super-luxury goods, an achievement built on the passion and commitment of every craftsperson employed at Goodwood. This beautiful collection is a fitting way to celebrate an extraordinary decade."

A 'celebration' motif, presented in hand-crafted marquetry on the front-fascia marks this landmark year in Rolls-Royce history. Using methods akin to the artistry of fine furniture makers, the effect is achieved through a process that marries cutting-edge technology with traditional craftsmanship.

Individual pieces of wood veneer are laser-cut to ensure precision. A craftsperson then painstakingly assembles the 170 sections made up from 11 varieties of woods, ensuring they perfectly express the vision of the marque's Bespoke design team. A fastidious process of quality control follows, utilising the world's most accurate measuring tool – the human eye.

In 2012 – a second successive record year for the marque – over 3,500 hand-built Rolls-Royce cars, exclusively created at Goodwood, were exported to all five continents. This is celebrated throughout the collection with a compass motif that expresses the Home of Rolls-Royce's position as a global centre of manufacturing excellence.

The pattern is also intricately embroidered into the armrests and console lid. 112,533 stitches are applied by precision embroidery machines that make 1,000 individual stitches per minute – however, such is the complexity of the pattern it takes over an hour to finish each individual piece. In total, 672 metres of thread is used with 450 pieces of individual leather to create the cosseting interior of the Home of Rolls-Royce Collection Phantom.

Co-ordinates engraved into tread plates, the bezel of the Spirit of Ecstasy and umbrella handles further express Goodwood's place as the only manufacturing centre for the world's pinnacle super-luxury marque.

A hand-painted coachline, culminating in a half-compass motif completes the exterior. Forming the final stage of a week-long, 22-stage painting process, coachlines are hand-applied by one highly-skilled craftsman using squirrel hair brushes. Normally this takes three hours – however the intricacy of this very special Bespoke design means the time taken to complete the process doubles.

The beauty and craftsmanship of every Home of Rolls-Royce Collection car runs much deeper than the hand polished painted surface of one of the 44,000 available exterior paint colors. The lightweight aluminium space frame that is at the core of every Phantom features 120 metres of precision hand welding and insures that the Home of Rolls-Royce Collection Phantom provides a refined driving experience. The 453bhp 6.75L V12 heart not only provides effortless acceleration but does so with the refinement of being able of supporting a British one pound coin stood on its edge on top of the running engine, as was originally specified by the Rolls-Royce engineers.

The Home of Rolls-Royce Collectioncars are currently being hand-built at Goodwood with delivery of the first customer cars to begin later this Autumn.

By Seyth Miersma