Skip to main content

Rolls Royce ‘Serenity Concept’ unveiled

The English luxury automakers have taken inspiration from contemporary interpretations of European furniture combined with royal Japanese kimono designs to create this one-off concept.

The Phantom Serenity concept features an oriental theme and is inspired by the “amazing interiors of the elite Rolls-Royces of the early 1900s”, according to director of design, Giles Taylor. The concept also celebrates “the historical role played by silk as a symbol of regal and imperial power”. The cabin features handwoven Chinese silk adorned with hand-painted crimson blossoms along with smoked cherry wood, mother of pearl, bamboo cross-banding and arctic white leather. The bespoke mother of pearl paint used on the car is the most expensive one-off paint ever developed by the company and was applied over three stages, followed by 12 hours of hand polishing.

The car also has two parasols featuring the Serenity motif held by bespoke leather loops incorporated into the boot lid. A two-colour coachline with a three-colour blossom motif adorns the Serenity's exterior and echoes the interior. It has been applied by the squirrel-hair brush of Rolls-Royce's coachline expert, Mark Court.

The silk was sourced from Suzhou, China, where it was hand dyed by Chinese craftsmen before being sent to one of Britain’s oldest mills in Essex, where it was hand-stitched for the car’s interior. The numerous colours of silk thread were blended into a warp, which has 140 threads per centimeter, to result in the 'Smoke Green' colour of the underlying silk fabric.

Once prepared, the silk was transferred to London, where the blossom motif designed by Haye and Lusby was embroidered onto it. The final touch was the detailed petal-by-petal hand-painting of crimson blossoms directly onto the silk.

Bespoke cars are making up an increasing part of Rolls Royce’s sales in the present, with as many as 85 percent of the cars now commissioned with some level of bespoke content.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

2018 Lamborghini Urus India review, test drive

             On first introduction, it’s a recipe for intimidation. It’s claimed to be the fastest SUV in the world (0-100kph in 3.6sec and a top speed of 305kph puts it nearly in supercar territory), and it’s made by Lamborghini – creator of some of the most savage vehicles on the market. Things – as with any Lamborghini, for that matter – would be a lot less daunting if we were driving on a smooth European country road, a wide motorway, or even a race track. But today we’re driving the Urus on a narrow  ghat  road, as well as through some heavy Pune traffic. Perhaps the intention was to demonstrate that this is the first Lamborghini ever to go on sale in India that truly works in our conditions – but still, I doubt they accounted for rush hour. It’s requisitely mad to look at, employing as many ‘sporty’ design tropes to an SUV body style as possible – the only thing missing is a massive wing on the back; and somehow, it works. It’s ...

Skoda Vision RS concept previews new hatchback

Skoda has set the stage for its forthcoming Volkswagen Golf and Ford Focus rival with the Vision RS, a concept car that features a performance plug-in hybrid (PHEV) powertrain. Under the sporty details and concept flourishes, the Vision RS bears a close resemblance to the Rapid hatchback that will be introduced next year. The fact that it has been previewed in vRS form, complete with 245hp PHEV powertrain, shows how much further upmarket the new Rapid will go compared with the current value-led model. Skoda product marketing chief Björn Kroll said: “The current Rapid is too low-market. For this one, we have tried to balance it out.” Skoda will drop the slow-selling liftback version and concentrate on the Spaceback hatch for the new Rapid. At 4,356mm, the concept is just over 50mm longer than the current Rapid, and it has a 440-litre boot that's up by 25 litres. The concept retains some of the current Rapid’s des...

What to avoid during a car service

                   When it comes to getting their cars serviced at authorised outlets, owners usually go the whole hog. They want their cars coming out of service centres looking brand new, and are willing to pay for it. But do service centres take undue advantage of this? Yes, they do. Servicing may involve changing certain parts and oils after a set interval, but service centres will almost always try to plug in a few extras using technical jargon that a layman may not really understand. Certain processes are completely unnecessary, and customers end up paying extra as they are not aware of what's important and what's not. Also, most of the times, the service associate will throw you a hard sales pitch, and it's not always done with your best interests in mind. So what exactly are the things you don’t really need and should avoid?  Engine flushing Flushing an engine simply means cleaning the impure oil and gunk that ...