Not content with the Jack White fab of the Al-Adiyat series of cars announced mere days ago, Rolls-Royce has pulled the wraps from a one-off fancy-plus-fancy sled whose name will have the tickers of Seinfeld and Firefly fans alike all aflutter: Serenity.
While the new Bugatti Veyron La Finale uses a leather called “Silk” to evoke luxury, this latest Phantom EWB uses actual silk. According to Goodwood, their muses were Rollers of days gone by—the sort of vehicles used by global potentates a century ago—contemporary furniture design, and the robes of Japanese bigwigs, both royals and merchants.
Unlike the functional-rattletrap interior of the Firefly-class transport that served as a setting for much of Joss Whedon’s short-lived space western, this latest Phantom is centered around a blossom motif. Like Whedon, who posited the language of the future would be a blend of English and Chinese, Rolls-Royce looked to the Middle Kingdom for inspiration. It wasn’t language they were after. In the tradition of wealthy European traders, it was raw material. In this case, silk thread. After being dyed, the thread was transported to the United Kingdom to be hand-woven into 10 meters of fabric at a rate of 2 meters per hour. From the mill in Essex, the Smoke Green fabric went to London for embroidery and “unconscious painting”, which sounds for all the world like one of Cosmo Kramer’s hare-brained schemes.
Serenity’s wooden accents are crafted from smoked cherrywood inlaid with bamboo. Mother of pearl marquetry uses a mixture of laser-cutting and hand application to mimic a Paul Reed Smith fretboard. MoP also finds its way to the clock’s face, as well as to the speedometer and power-reserve gauge. The stuff is inlaid with rubies, because Rolls is not screwing around. Further proof? Any old schmuck who buys a Rolls-Royce these days gets a pair of umbrellas that pop out of the doors, but only Serenity has a matched set of parasols fastened to the inside of the trunklid with leather straps. Opulence? Adequate. Serenity? NOW!
At this moment, Goodwood would like to take pains to point out that the 3-stage mother-of-pearl paint job on this sucker is the most expensive one-off color they’ve ever developed and required a full 12 hours of color sanding, cutting, buffing, and polishing prior to its big debut at the Geneva Motor Show. For the sake of Frank Constanza’s delicate heart, we hope the car’s new owner doesn’t con his local automotive-registrar’s office into issuing an “ASSMAN” license plate.
Frank Costanza and the Browncoats: Rolls-Royce Introduces Outstanding Phantom Serenity
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