• Rolls-Royce’s latest special commission is a Phantom featuring stunning hummingbird artwork.
• It’s the first Rolls-Royce to employ abalone shells for delicate marquetry artwork, a technique where thin pieces of material are fitted together in a wood panel.
  The marquetry includes a hummingbird taking flight on each table for the rear passengers and an abstract botanical design between the rear seats.

As long as you have the cash, Rolls-Royce is happy to cater to nearly every desire. This has led to a long line of one-offs with wild customizations, from a Phantom with the history of Rolls-Royce painted across the seats to a Ghost adorned with 8-bit, arcade-game-inspired aliens. Now, the British automaker has revealed its latest private commission, the Phantom Hummingbird, which becomes the first vehicle the company has produced with marquetry made from abalone shells.

If that sentence sounds a bit out of your tax bracket, allow us to explain. Marquetry is an art form where images or patterns are created from thin pieces of wood and other materials—such as shells, metal, or ivory—and inlaid into a solid backing, creating an almost puzzle-like effect. This isn’t the first time Rolls-Royce has used the technique: the Spectre Bailey featured a marquetry portrait of the owner’s dog between the rear seats. Cadillac also used the technique to great effect on the back of the seats in the Sollei concept.

In the Phantom Hummingbird, commissioned by a client as a tribute to their wife, the marquetry appears in three spots. Each “picnic table,” what Rolls-Royce dubs the platforms that fold downwards from the rear seats, features an exquisite image of a hummingbird taking flight. The images are each crafted from 53 individual pieces of abalone shell and mother-of-pearl, with the wings consisting of 18 pieces on their own.

This marks the first time Rolls-Royce has paired this technique with abalone shell, which comes from a sea snail and has a glimmering, entrancing iridescent effect on its inner surface. The blue-green-purple hue is perfectly suited to conveying the shimmering feathers of a hummingbird.

The other piece of marquetry appears on what Rolls-Royce calls the “rear waterfall panel,” which sits between the rear seats. This image is a more abstract botanical motif and is fashioned from 84 individual pieces. This artwork took over nine months to develop, as abalone shell’s brittle nature proved a challenge, Rolls-Royce said, and completing all three marquetry panels took a total of 45 hours.

Rolls-Royce, of course, didn’t leave the exterior untouched, with the Phantom wearing a hand-painted hummingbird feeding on a flower, integrated above the rear wheel into the coachline that runs the length of the car’s body. The lower body is painted in Wildberry, while the upper body is painted in White Sands. The cabin, meanwhile, is upholstered in Creme Light leather with Moccasin and tan detailing, and the marquetry panel backgrounds are fashioned from Ash Burr wood. The dashboard also features a unique finish with an array of cutouts around the clock.

The Phantom Hummingbird was commissioned through Rolls-Royce’s Private Office Dubai, and it undoubtedly cost heaps of money on top of the Phantom’s already exorbitant $555,350 base price. But for a piece of automotive artwork as unique as this, we’re sure the owner was happy to pay.

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Caleb Miller began blogging about cars at 13 years old, and he realized his dream of writing for a car magazine after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University and joining the Car and Driver team. He loves quirky and obscure autos, aiming to one day own something bizarre like a Nissan S-Cargo, and is an avid motorsports fan.