Rolls-Royce Phantom Syntopia Is The Brand's Most Complex One-Of-One Build Yet

The paint is just as exclusive as the car. Called Liquid Noir, the iridescent finish shows purple, blue, magenta, and gold tones, depending on the angle at which it is viewed. This effect is made possible by applying the brand's darkest solid-black paint as a base, with this overlaid "with a finish incorporating a mirror-like pigment" with color-shifting properties. Adding more drama is a brand-new application technique for adding pigment to the clearcoat, which took several months to perfect with more than 3,000 hours of testing validation. The finishing touch is the hood of the car, which has been painted with a subtle take on the Weaving Water motif seen in the cabin.

Inside, the Bespoke Starlight Headliner was made using a single sheet of blemish-free leather featuring precise symmetrical cuts that expose a silver 'liquid metal' texture made of woven fabric. This comes from the Couturiere's 'Embossed Sounds' Collection and gives the headliner a 3D effect, thanks to 162 petals made of glass organza applied to the car by van Herpen's team in a process that took almost 300 hours. After that was done, 187 of the 995 fiber optic 'stars' were placed by hand and are illuminated sequentially, starting at the rear and moving to the front. RR says the Headliner alone took nearly 700 hours to complete.

The Gallery adds another 85 petals as part of a process that took almost 60 hours to complete. The rear-seat picnic tables and the area below the Gallery ape the artwork of the hood, again with multiple coats of paint. Here, the paint was mixed with 0.9% glass particles before the Weaving Water design was applied with a clear coat mixed with 1.4% of shimmer, which took over three weeks to complete. The automaker's Exterior Surface Centre team reportedly spent four months perfecting the ratios and processes, running nine trials before coming to the ideal proportion of glass particles, which turned out to be exactly one tablespoon worth.

Combined with Magic Grey leather, the rear seats add a special silk-blend fabric with patterns inspired by light reflecting on water at night. Finally, the seats also boast the Weaving Water motif while the headrests release the Bespoke scent.

After four years of continuous development, Rolls says it will never repeat anything to mimic this, but you can be sure other highly-intensive Bespoke creations will follow.