Rolls-Royce produces some of the most luxurious cars in the world. Known for producing hand-built cars that provide customers with a smooth, “magic carpet” ride, custom-built Rolls-Royces don't come cheap. These are some of the best-selling Rolls-Royce models, and these were their starting prices.
With virtually unlimited add-on options, upgrades and personalization, the true cost of a custom-built Rolls-Royce has no limits. In fact, Rolls-Royce refuses to even list base prices.
There is no specific base price as it depends on each customer's individual preferences and options tailored to their needs. The customer can design and develop them with our custom order team
explains Rhodri Good, product manager at Rolls-Royce.
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What is Rolls-Royce personalization?
and is that what makes it so expensive?
— One of the first obvious starting points is color. We have a pallet of over 44,000. colors. We recreate the colors of lipsticks, things that you have at home, that you own or that you have seen. We even reproduced the color of the dog – an Irish setter. We reproduce colors accurately, whether through DNA, chemistry, or anything else. This is special for us. The color is registered as yours and you can give it a name. If someone sees it and wants to use it, we have to approach you and ask for your permission. Our paint shop is called the Surface Finishing Center because the statement that we “paint a car” is a bit offensive. It's more than that. We apply at least seven layers of varnish. There are primers, base coats and colors. What's unusual is that we apply two coats of clear varnish. You can have up to 23 layers of varnish, which we have already done. This corresponds to approximately 45 kg of paint layers alone explains David Dean, tour guide at Rolls-Royce.
In addition to the endless range of colors, Rolls-Royce customers can enrich the paint with materials that allow them to achieve special effects. One particularly wealthy client went a step further by asking for a thousand diamonds.
He wanted the paint to be a little shinier, so he gave us a bag of diamonds. We crushed them and added them to the varnish
Dean recalls.
Interestingly, detailed Painting work on Rolls-Royce cars is done manually by one person.
Detailed paint work on Rolls-Royce cars is done by hand by one person
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— My name is Mark Court and I'm a coachliner at Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. A coachliner is someone who can put that pinstripe on the side of the car. What's unique is that I do it completely freehand and I'm the only person in Rolls-Royce who can do it. This applies to the entire Rolls-Royce BMW Group worldwide. The brushes I use are made of squirrel hair. Most brushes available on the market are synthetic, which means they leave marks. And these natural bristles leave no traces. We have high standards, so we use a brush that doesn't leave any marks, says Mark Court, coachliner at Rolls-Royce.
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Each Rolls-Royce is unique and tailored to the owner's taste
If clients choose decorative lines, Mark is ready to travel around the world with his brush.
As usual, Rolls-Royce never comes back to us. We're going to him. So if it's in Dubai, that's where I need to go
– Court explains.
Each Rolls-Royce model has several distinctive external features. A handcrafted grille, a non-rotating rim center so the RR logo never rotates, and a Spirit of Ecstasy figure.
In 2003, BMW paid $65 million. for the rights to the Rolls-Royce name, logo and Spirit of Ecstasy figurine. It's the car's interior, however, that has much more luxury – and cost.
To ensure a virtually silent ride, Rolls-Royce adds approximately 135 kg of sound insulation around the cabin. Tire manufacturer Continental has even developed special foam-filled tires that reduce noise by 9 decibels.
The results were so good that Rolls-Royce removed some of the sound insulation to avoid sensory deprivation. The dashboard of a Rolls-Royce Phantom can even become a bespoke art gallery.
Clients commissioned artists to create a variety of designs, including a gold-plated, 3D-printed stainless steel installation that replicates the client's DNA profile.
Each Rolls-Royce is unique
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Another great feature of the Rolls-Royce is the Starlight Headliner, an illuminated headliner that creates a vision of the night sky.
The Starlight Headliner takes up to 16 hours to complete. We start by drilling holes and then perforating each hole to pass the fiber optics through. We make as many as 1,340 holes. We make them to get the effect of a night sky with stars
explains Alexandra Benga, a craftswoman at Rolls-Royce.
As with all Rolls-Royce products, customers can create bespoke designs, including randomly generated shooting stars. One client even asked for a design that accurately reproduced the star constellation of the night he was born. Embroidery on the upholstery is also tailored to the individual preferences of customers.
— There is no standard and repeatable process because each project is completely unique and tailored to the client. It's not just about scanning an image and embroidering it. Every aspect of the design is carefully considered. Different stitch angles reflect light differently. Instead of a flat image, we try to do something at a higher level. Thanks to this, our embroideries are almost three-dimensional and look like a hologram, says Joshua Liles, embroiderer at Rolls-Royce.
In Rolls-Royce cars, everything can be made to order
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Rolls-Royce Rose Phantom is a unique model
The most complex design that Rolls-Royce has completed is this special Rose Phantom model, which is made up of a million separate stitches.
— Rose Phantom is the largest embroidery project we have done to date. We must carefully plan the order in which the embroidery is placed on the skin so that they all connect to match the stitches. There is no room for mistakes. We cannot make a mistake even by a millimeter, otherwise the whole thing will be destroyed. Here's an excerpt from Rose Phantom. This is a good example of the design development of one of the butterflies. What seems relatively simple in drawing becomes very complicated in embroidery. For the Phantom Rose headliner, we used several techniques that we hadn't used before, explains Liles.
As with all Rolls-Royce products, customers can create individual designs
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— Due to the size of the project, we had to divide it into individual elements. Separately we made butterflies, flower heads, and then vines and leaves. As you can see, we made layers of stitches with different colors and densities. We achieved a shading effect. The center is darker and towards the wings the color brightens. We could refine the elements and then assemble them into the headliner, he adds.
Over the last 10 years, Rolls-Royce has experienced a sales boom. The average age of a Rolls-Royce owner has dropped from the late 50s to the mid-40s. Take Drake for example. His Bushukan model, a special edition Phantom, left the factory costing around $700,000. hole.
Customizations, such as a diamond-encrusted OVO owl instead of a Spirit of Ecstasy figurine, brought the total price to around $1 million.
While other high-end automakers focus on speed, agility and ultra-lightweight supercar status, Rolls-Royce cars are expensive for one reason: luxury.
