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Rolls-Royce Wraith gets Inspired by Music for latest special

A favored status symbol of both old money and new, Rolls-Royce has counted some of the most famously wealthy personalities among its clients over the years. More than a few of them, of course, have been musicians – rock n' roll icons, in fact. And it's their legend from which the British automaker has drawn the inspiration for this latest special edition. Based on the Wraith fastback, the Inspired by Music edition is all done up in black and bronze. It's got a dark Lyrical Copper paintjob on the outside, and both brushed and polished copper trim throughout the interior. There's a bright book-matched copper dashboard, along with copper door inserts, speaker grilles, and more. Goodwood's customization department has also fitted it with woven leather floor mats and a special clock with a bezel designed to emulate vinyl records. Of course, it's also got what promises to be one of the finest sound systems in the industry. The Bespoke Audio setup packs 1300 watts of power and 18 speakers – including two subwoofers, seven tweeters, seven mid-range speakers, and two "exciter" speakers embedded in the headliner to round it all out. It even uses microphones to monitor sound levels inside and out of the vehicle, adjusting the volume and tone to compensate. This is the third such inspired Wraith special edition that Rolls-Royce has released. Back in May it released a rather different take in the white-on-white Inspired by Fashion edition. That was preceded in late March by the Inspired by Film edition. Each Wraith packs a 624-horsepower, 6.6-liter twin-turbo V12, making them the fastest, most powerful Rolls models to date. And if none of these particular special editions tickle your fancy, we're sure the company will create one for you to your own exacting specifications – assuming of course that you've got the means. Related Video: ROLLS-ROYCE WRAITH 'INSPIRED BY MUSIC' Rolls-Royce Motor Cars has contributed to the myth and legend of the contemporary music scene since the birth of Rock & Roll. Over half a century later, this long-standing love affair lives on, with some of the world's most celebrated artists choosing the marque as the ultimate affirmation of their success. In this spirit, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars is delighted to present Wraith 'Inspired by Music'. Since the launch of Wraith in 2013, customers have been able to commission their Rolls-Royce Wraith with Bespoke Audio; the most exhaustively designed sound system in automotive history.

Check out some of the coolest Rolls-Royce Bespoke projects of 2023

The vast majority of buyers who order a new Rolls-Royce customize the car to some extent — the sky is the limit, and we're not talking about the one embedded into the headliner. As 2023 draws to a close, the British brand is highlighting some of the coolest requests it received. Rolls-Royce notes its Bespoke department received several unprecedented requests in 2023; one customer even asked for a special scent, and engineers had to develop several new paint processes. One of the highlights is the Phantom Syntopia, which the company labels "the most technically complex Bespoke commission ever undertaken." Created jointly with Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen, it explores a theme called "Weaving Water" with custom details on the hood, the dashboard, and the headliner, which took nearly 700 hours to make. Travel inspired several Rolls-Royce customers in 2023. Three units of the Cullinan Black Badge Lucid Nights were built for the South Korean market and painted in Lime Green, Indy Red and Tucana Purple, respectively, as a tribute to the neon-lit streets of Seoul. Moving closer to the brand's headquarters, the one-off Phantom Cinque Terre features styling cues inspired by some of Italy's most touristic villages and the wine made in that region. The headliner notably incorporates a map of Italy embroidered with no less than 14,338 individual stitches. Limited to 25 units, the Ghost Black Badge Ekleipsis Private Collection features styling cues from the world of astrology. It's finished in a color combination inspired by a total solar eclipse, and its headliner gains an animation that mimics an eclipse and lasts for seven and a half minutes. The dashboard gets a clock whose bezel incorporates a brilliant-cut 0.5-carat diamond — the first in Rolls-Royce's history. Riding in the one-of-one Rose Blossom Phantom should feel like sitting in a summer garden, without the sunburn and the wasps trying to taste your drink. Rolls-Royce embroidered flowers into the dashboard and the headliner, and it added four species of butterfly (Swallowtail, Peacock, Common Blue and Duke of Burgundy) to bring the backdrop to life. The headliner in this car required over 200 hours of work. Some buyers take a more personal approach to customization.

The Rolls-Royce of cocktails is a coddling ride for your tastebuds

In our last installment of the irregular and irreverent series on drinks loosely connected to – or named after – automobiles, we sipped a Speedway Cocktail, a drink that was as exciting (and dangerous) as the early Indy 500. This time, we're stirring a Rolls-Royce Cocktail with a silver spoon. And, as always, enjoy cocktails (and reading about them) while you're not behind the wheel. If the rumors we hear are correct, Rolls-Royce will be unveiling an all-new Phantom this summer. The arrival of a flagship Roller isn't quite as rare as the coronation of a new member of the British Royal Family, but is tres recherche nonetheless. Since the nameplate's founding nearly 100 years ago, this will be only the eighth generation of Phantom to be delivered into the greedy hands of the world's vilest oligarchs. If you're one of the .01 percent, this is cause for a drink, and what better cocktail to raise in toast than one named for the brand itself? (For us 99.99 percenters, the answer is easy: Molotov.) As you might expect, the Rolls-Royce cocktail is kind of a classied-up version of an upscale iteration of an already elegant drink, conjugated from the classic (gin) martini and it well-married brother, the Martinez. "It's basically a very wet martini," says Paul Hletko, founder of FEW Spirits, an Evanston, Illinois gin and whiskey distillery acronymically (and winkingly) named for local maven Frances Elizabeth Willard, who helped found the Women's Christian Temperance Union – one of the forces behind Prohibition. "Two-to-one is a fantastic ratio of gin to vermouth that really lets the vermouth shine, and then having that split between dry and sweet vermouths gives you fantastic and rich complexity, with that little bit of Benedictine being that really nice herbal add," Hletko told us. It all sounds intriguingly botanical, and the drink itself has a reputation as being a favorite among bartenders, a coupe brimming with insider insight. "In the history of drinking there are many cocktails made with vermouth and gin," says legendary mixologist Charles Schumann from Schumann's Gastronomie in Munich.