Rolls-Royce has unveiled Phantom Hummingbird, a one-off Phantom Extended commissioned as a tribute to its owner’s wife. Curated through Private Office Dubai, the car takes its name and much of its detailing from the hummingbird. Its central feature is a first for the marque: abalone shell marquetry, used with mother-of-pearl to depict the bird’s iridescent plumage.
The work appears on both rear picnic tables and on the Waterfall panel between the rear seats. Each table carries a hummingbird assembled from 53 individual pieces of abalone and mother-of-pearl, including 18 pieces in its wings. An 84-piece botanical composition fills the Waterfall panel. Ash Burr veneer provides the background for all three panels, while Silver Birch forms part of the picnic-table designs. Rolls-Royce selected and examined a single Silver Birch log for its grain before cutting the pieces used in those motifs.
The choice of abalone created a production problem as well as a distinctive finish. Its thin, brittle shell had to be cut and fitted into the veneer without losing the clean edges needed for the closely spaced pieces of the birds’ wings. Rolls-Royce says development took more than nine months and six iterations before its craftspeople settled on a suitable process. They reduced the thickness of both the abalone and mother-of-pearl so the pieces could be seated securely, then lacquered the finished panels.
Each shell fragment is laser-cut 0.06 mm larger than its intended final size to account for material affected by the laser. Craftspeople then file it by hand until its edges meet the surrounding pieces without a visible seam. Rolls-Royce reports 45 hours of work across the three panels after the pieces were cut and fitted. The changing blue-green appearance of the abalone gives the birds an effect that shifts with the light, much as the color of a hummingbird’s feathers changes with the viewing angle.
The rest of the cabin is restrained by comparison. Creme Light leather seats have Moccasin and Tan details, with Seashell carpets below and a Starlight Headliner above. The relatively quiet palette gives the shell and woodwork room to stand out without extending the bird motif across every surface.
Outside, Phantom Hummingbird wears a two-tone finish of Wildberry on the lower body and White Sands above. A hand-applied White Sands Coachline follows the division between the colors and includes a painted hummingbird. Rolls-Royce has not disclosed the commission’s price or the identity of its client.
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