Rolls-Royce displays a masterpiece of marquetry

The Rolls-Royce Pinnacle Travel Phantom was created to celebrate China's love of travel and to showcase the levels of craftsmanship the company can offer through its bespoke design studio.

The new Bespoke Collection car, officially unveiled at the Beijing motor show boasts an opulent two-tone exterior finish of Madeira Red and Silver Sand with complementing tones of leather and lambswool dressing the seats, roof liner and covering the floors. The seats and rear cushions are further embellished with a specially designed motif, stitched in smoke grey thread.

But as impressive and cosseting as all of that is, it is nothing compared to the marquetry that adorns the instrument panel and other cabin surfaces.

The individual pieces of different colored wood veneers have been precision laser cut and then painstakingly assembled by hand to create the image of a train speeding across a landscape, leaving plumes of smoke in its wake.

In all, there are 230 individual pieces of marquetry adorning the cabin, from the front fascia to the rear passengers' picnic tables. The incredible woodwork is complemented by some serious needlework too as the motif blends into the fabrics dressing the doors thanks to 24,633 individual stitches.

As Rolls-Royce's CEO, Torsten Müller-Ötvös, said, when the wraps were officially taken off the car: 'Bespoke is Rolls-Royce and our Chinese customers know it. To celebrate China's love of travel and the success of Bespoke in China, I am proud to unveil Pinnacle Travel Phantom. This car is a showcase of Rolls-Royce's pre-eminence in Bespoke design seen through the prism of luxury travel.'