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Rolls-Royce Wraith Luminary Collection gets celestial headliner

Rolls-Royce has announced a new bespoke collection for its Wraith 2-door luxury coupe that is highlighted, literally, by a headliner full of glittering shooting stars. It's called the Wraith Luminary Collection and its production will be limited to just 55 examples. The car is like its own planetarium on wheels, thanks to a starlight headliner concocted by the folks at the Rolls-Royce Bespoke Collective in Goodwood, West Sussex. It's a handwoven configuration of 1,340 fiber-optic lights mimicking the night sky — and even the occasional shooting star — and it takes 20 hours to configure. Rolls-Royce says eight shooting stars fire at random, mostly over the front seats. Open up the suicide doors and you'll see the celestial theme continued inside the cabin. Tudor oak wood veneer, sourced from forests in the Czech Republic and chosen for its depth of color and grain structure, is back-lit by 176 LED lights that permeates through intricate perforations in the veneer that form another starlight pattern at the touch of a button. "Linked to the controls of the starlight headliner, the cabin's veneer surrounds Wraith's occupants in an ambient glow of light," the luxury marque says. Outside, the Luminary Collection comes pained in Sunburst Grey with rich Saddlery Tan-colored lines hand painted along the bonnet and side body, a color scheme inspired by "the heady shade of the golden hour's sunrays" and referencing the interior leather color scheme. It's also echoed in the center of each wheel. Cockpit seats come trimmed in the same tan leather, while rear seats feature a contrasting Anthracite leather or an available Seashell color for the leather, matched by a two-tone steering wheel. The seats get contrasting piping and stitching tying the colors together. Also new is a hand-woven stainless steel fabric, a new technique for luxury goods borrowed from industrial uses, for the center console and door panniers. Each swath is made up of strands between 0.08 and 0.19 millimeters in diameter and takes three days to produce in a clean-room environment. Finally, the collection features stainless-steel tread plates engraved with the words, "Wraith Luminary Collection — One of Fifty-Five." Prices weren't announced, befitting the brand's aura of exclusivity, but the Wraith starts at a mere $320,000.

Rolls-Royce reveals Year of the Dragon-themed customer commissions

Most buyers who order a new Rolls-Royce customize it through the brand's Bespoke department, and four recently requested a car inspired by the Year of the Dragon, which starts on February 10 in China. The company is highlighting the meticulous design changes it made. The batch of four Lunar New Year-themed cars is split into three units of the Phantom Extended and one example of the Cullinan. And, surprisingly, not all of them are headed to the Chinese market; Rolls-Royce says that the orders came from three different continents. Its designers started by creating a dragon logo specifically for the four builds. It's hand-stitched or hand-painted depending on the application. Red has historically been associated with the Year of the Dragon, it represents prosperity and good fortune in Chinese culture, and it defines the look given to three of the four cars (the fourth hasn't been unveiled yet). One of the Phantom Extended models is finished in a two-tone Cherry Red and silver livery with hand-painted Phoenix Red pinstripes and the dragon logo on each fender. The Cullinan is finished in Selby Gray and Cherry Red with white pinstripes and logos, while the second Phantom is black with Phoenix Red pinstripes and no dragon logos.  Painting the dragon logo that appears on the dashboard in three of the four cars is a complex, multi-step process that takes over two weeks. Rolls-Royce notes that the logo is the work of one artist who overlays multiple shades of red in four individual stages to achieve a 3D effect. Look up and you'll see another dragon; it's in the Starlight headliner. It consists of 677 stars that shine to create a dragon's shape and an additional 667 stars spread out across the panel. Designing this headliner took over three months and making it requires over 20 hours. There's no word yet on how much Rolls-Royce charged for each commission, but we're guessing price wasn't a concern.  Related video:

Not every Rolls-Royce Cullinan Black Badge comes in black

SPARTANBURG, S.C. — When Rolls-Royce recently unveiled the Cullinan Black Badge, the released press photos were of a very black car in a very black environment. But that did not match the car that was actually shown to the press. Quite the opposite, actually. The small event at the BMW Zentrum factory in South Carolina took place at night under a set of bright lights, and the car that came through the curtain wore a bright white body. We were fortunate enough to spend a brief time with the white Black Badge and snapped some photos of its details. As a reminder, all Black Badges have upgraded performance on top of the altered visual cues. Its twin-turbocharged 6.75-liter V8 has been upgraded to make 600 horsepower and 664 lb-ft of torque, and the brakes, suspension and exhaust have been retuned as well. We spent an extremely limited amount of time in the Black Badge, so we cannot offer full comments about how it drives, but we can say the exhaust offers a nice insulated grumble in "Low" mode, the quickness off the line doesn't make any sense for a vehicle its size (trust us, it is huge), and it seemed controlled while cruising up the curves onto the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina, where these photos were taken.  The white paint exaggerates the parts Rolls-Royce darkens on all Black Badge models. The Spirit of Ecstasy, the grille surround, the inverted badging, the side frame finishers, the trunk handle, the trunk trim, the lower air inlet finisher, and the exhaust pipes have all gone black. Inside, this particular Cullinan has a red leather interior with patterned carbon fiber accents. It also has light contrast stitching, which includes infinity signs, a symbol used on Sir Malcolm Campbell's Rolls-Royce-powered Blue Bird K3 hydroplane. Check out all the details, including the built-in event seats in the trunk, in our massive gallery above. Featured Gallery White Rolls-Royce Black Badge Cullinan View 55 Photos Design/Style Rolls-Royce Luxury rolls-royce cullinan