Your brain isn’t ready for how classy the Rolls-Royce Phantom Scintilla is

Here it is then, the Rolls-Royce Phantom Scintilla; a car so ethereal it might well have been carried down from cloud nine by a chorus of bewinged angels.

Okay we’re exaggerating, but you get the point: this is a very classy Rolls-Royce of which very few will be made. Only 10, says Rolls, and even then only via its Private Office no doubt only open to a back-channel of ludicrously wealthy and discrete clientele.

The inspiration for the Scintilla is the Spirit of Ecstasy herself, which in turn owes its form to ‘The Winged Victory of Samothrace’ - a Greek statue dating back to 190 BC - which gave sculptor Charles Sykes the inspiration for the bonnet-dwelling figurine when he was commissioned for it in 1910.

The statue was made of Parian marble, and so the Spirit of Ecstasy is rendered here in a ceramic finish with the same fine-grained effect. Suddenly silver looks a bit tacky, huh?

Meanwhile the two-tone paint finish is a nod to the island of Samothrace, with the Andalusian White upper and Thracian Blue lower body said to reflect the colours of the sea. A ‘metallic flake mimics the sparkle of sunlight on the water’, apparently. Double coachline and wheel pinstripes are present in Spirit Blue. Painted by hand, obviously.

Inside, there is embroidery. Significant amounts of embroidery.  The coach doors and rear fabric seats alone contain 869,500 stitches (presumably it was someone’s job to count them all), while the motif along the doors adds another 633,000 and is, says Rolls, ‘the most complex door design’ it has ever attempted.

The latter features five colours - Blue Grey, Arctic White, Spirit Blue, Powder Blue, Pastel Yellow - with different thread thicknesses and stitch orientations applied over six layers and 36 segments which were eventually stitched into one piece. It took two and a half years to develop, and each interior takes 40 hours to produce. Yikes.

And the seats are finished in a twill fabric with a reflective sheen… add another 236,500 stitches for good measure.

Up above, check out the bespoke starlight headliner which consists of 1,500 fibre optic stars all placed by hand and said to be inspired by the Spirit of Ecstasy’s flowing gown.

And up top, there’s what RR calls its Celestial Pulse Gallery artwork; a centrepiece formed of seven individually milled aluminium ribbons - in the same ceramic finish as the statuette - flowing across the front fascia.

“The unveiling of a Private Collection is always a landmark moment,” said Rolls’s chief exec Chris Brownbridge. “These rare and collectible motor cars, limited to just a handful of examples worldwide, are true masterpieces. They illustrate the boundless ingenuity and skill of the creatives and craftspeople at the Home of Rolls-Royce, and stimulate ideas among our clients for their own commissions.

“They also affirm Rolls-Royce’s status as an authentic luxury house. We do not simply build motor cars — we create rare, complex and exquisitely crafted super-luxury products that are highly prized by collectors today and will be cherished long into the future."

And on that note… it’s worth remembering that each Phantom Scintilla will be supplied with its own bespoke car cover. The cynic in us worries that said cover will spend an awful lot of time attached to said car, thus preventing dust particles and microbes from defacing a pristine investment opportunity. Sorry, exquisite motor vehicle.