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Rolls-Royce's star of the Beijing Motor Show this week is the Pinnacle Travel Phantom from its Bespoke division.

Exterior

Shown in long-wheelbase form, this one-off Phantom is finished in two-tone Madeira Red and Silver Sand paintwork. The car's long flanks are decorated with a contrasting Madeira Red hand-painted coach line that depicts a streamlined train travelling at speed. Potential buyers of this special edition can choose from other colour combinations such as Infinity Black with Silver Haze, and Melanite combined with Palladium.

Interior

As one would expect from a car of this calibre from Rolls-Royce, the interior is nothing short of opulent. Morello Red and Seashell leather covers the seats, roof liner, side pillars and door cards. The thick lamb's wool floor mats are also given the Morello Red treatment - red being a particularly lucky colour in Chinese culture. For added comfort there are individual fabric cushions for the rear passengers to ensure that even longer journeys can be dispatched in comfort.

In a blend of old and new traditions, the individual pieces of wood veneer are cut using lasers to ensure absolute precision before then being carefully assembled by one of the many highly-skilled craftspeople at Rolls-Royce, using what can only be described as fastidious attention to detail.

Mechanicals

No changes have been made under the skin of the Phantom. Power comes in the form of a 6.75-litre 453hp V12 engine that produces an 'adequate' 719Nm of torque. Unlike most cars that have rev counters, the Rolls-Royce simply has a dial that shows the percentage of power in reserve.

Anything else?

Such is the attention to detail inside this new Phantom, there is a motif that stretches across the front fascia of a speeding train with plumes of stream left in its wake, which is made up of 230 pieces of marquetry. This then blends into the leather door cards in the form of 24,633 individual stitches.

Dave Humphreys - 24 Apr 2014