Business Insider Australia
This week the brand unveiled its new Wraith model at an event in Sydney, where Rolls-Royce general manager Asia Pacific Dan Balmer shared the most interesting bespoke choices he had ever seen with Business Insider.
Hunting birds of prey in style
“We had a guy in the Middle East, a Crown Prince who wanted the interior of the boot lined with the tartan of the school he went to in Scotland.
“We lined it with the tartan, and in the floor we lined it with a cocktail bar in one side, and a cool-box in the other, so when he went out to his shooting — he used to shoot birds of prey — he had a nice cool drink to refresh him.
“And he could sit on the deck of his boot … do his shooting from there. And he had a nice footstool as well, laid into the boot.”
The Orchard-wood inlay
“We had one client in the UK who wanted the wood from his orchard he was clearing out for a property to be used in his car.
“That’s a difficult undertaking, as we source our wood from sustainable forests. But in this case, he was going to clear the trees away anyway.
“We put the veneer in his Phantom.”
Candy-Apple red, yellow and purple
“One of our clients in the United States is a big Ferrari fan. And he was a yellow Ferrari collector.
“He came to us with a paint sample from his Ferrari and he said ‘I want the same colour in my Phantom.’
“He did not just say ‘I want this paint’ — which is a fairly standard request — he pushed it one step further than that.
He said ‘I want a yellow interior,’ so we said ‘all right, we’ll make yellow leather.’
“Then he said ‘I want yellow dials. ‘Okay, we’ll do that. Fine’.
“We built the car, and it was [sun]glasses on. It was quite a statement.
“He came back in a year and said ‘everything we did in yellow, I want in red’.
“So we did it in a special red called Candy-Apple.
“Then he came back the following year, and said ‘everything we did in red, I want in purple’.
Business Insider Australia