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Luxury car manufacturers know that some of their millionaire customers They are going to make special requests to customize your cars. In fact, at Rolls-Royce they are these “whims” are so common They have even had to expand their customization workshop. However, there are requests that exceed any expectations. Rolls-Royce just presented he Phantom Arabesquea unique car in the world that reached its owner from the Middle East after five years of hard work in the brand’s workshops. It’s not that it took them five years to make it: it’s that they took that long just to perfect a completely new technique just to decorate the hood. The most curious thing is that the design that decorates the hood is more than a thousand years old. An Arabic design transferred to metal The result of five years of testing and development by Rolls-Royce is the first laser-engraved bonnet in the history of the brand, and of motorsport. In fact, it is such an innovative process that the brand has patented it. The reason for such a deployment of R&D is a client’s request from the Middle East who asked the brand to decorate the hood of their new Phantom with a design present in Arab architecture for more than a thousand years. Inspiration comes from mashrabiyaa classic element of Middle Eastern architecture that consists of a carved wooden lattice placed on windows and facades whose function is triple: to provide privacy, let in light and allow air circulation to cool the buildings naturally. A solution as elegant as it is functional, developed centuries ago and which today appears laser engraved on the hood of one of the most exclusive cars in the world. This Phantom Extended was ordered through the Dubai Private Office, one of five “private offices” that Rolls-Royce maintains in strategic luxury destinations. In the Rolls-Royce statement, the project’s chief designer, Michelle Lusby, explains that the objective went beyond the visual. “Mashrabiya is one of the Middle East’s most well-known and enduring design languages. For the Phantom Arabesque, we were inspired not only by its beauty, but also by the privacy, light and airflow it creates. Our goal was to interpret those qualities in ways that felt both culturally rooted and unmistakably Rolls-Royce.” Five years shooting lasers at a hood The hood design of this exclusive unit It is not a simple paintingbut has been subjected to a technical process as elaborate and precise as the design of the Arab lattices itself. First, a dark paint is applied to the hood, several layers of clear varnish are sealed, which will serve as a base for the work of art. It is then finished with a lighter top coat. The laser is fired on this last layer, reproducing the mashrabiya pattern at a depth of between 145 and 190 microns. Enough to affect this last layer of paint and showing the dark tone of the underlying paint. The effect is a surface with a three-dimensional texture that changes its appearance depending on how the light hits it and that can also be perceived by touch since, in fact, the design is sculpted on the paint. The technique is inspired by sgraffito (sgraffito) Italian, an artistic practice of revealing contrasting layers of color by precisely removing the upper surface. Adapting it to the body of a Rolls-Royce and giving it the precision required by a design as complex as that of arabesque architecture, required five years of work by the brand’s Exterior Surfaces Center, where new materials and paints are developed and then used. on such exclusive orders like those of this Phamtom Arabesque. Tobias Sicheneder, general manager of that department, sums it up: “laser engraving allows us to create a surface that is both technically precise and visually alive. The Phantom Arabesque is the first example of a technique that opens up completely new creative possibilities for future customers.” The mashrabiya pattern is not limited to the hood: it also appears on the illuminated door sills, which reproduce a cross section of the engraved design, and hand-embroidered in black on the leather of the front and rear headrests Without a doubt, a unique piece as well as its price will have been unique. In Xataka | Rolls-Royce wanted to make its Specter more scoundrel and sporty: the result is a limited edition that costs $490,000 Image | Rolls-Royce