Rolls-Royce has made a lot of one-offs and special editions that were themed around space, like the Spectre Lunaflair and the Cullinan Blue Shadow, and for years buyers have been able to customize the brand’s signature Starlight headliner to depict the night sky at specific moments in time, complete with shooting stars. But Rolls-Royce’s latest space-themed bespoke creation is perhaps its most incredible yet: called the Cullinan Cosmos, its headliner has an “ethereal interpretation” of the Milky Way, freehand painted by a single artist over the course of more than 160 hours.
The Cullinan Cosmos was commissioned through Rolls-Royce’s Private Office Dubai by “a family who shares a fascination for the universe with their four-year-old son,” and apparently the car was delivered “in time for a special occasion.” I loved dinosaurs when I was four, why didn’t my parents get me a custom dinosaur-themed Rolls-Royce? Ugh, life so isn’t fair. Phil Fabre de la Grange, the head of the automaker’s bespoke division, said the Cullinan Cosmos “demonstrates how Rolls-Royce brings clients’ otherworldly visions to life with drama, depth, and absolute precision.”
Paint inspired by moonlight
The customers kept the exterior of the Cullinan Cosmos pretty simple. It’s painted in Arabescato Pearl, a color seemingly created just for this car that Rolls-Royce says emulates “the soft lustre of moonlight across a midnight sky.” There’s a twin coachline in Charles Blue for a bit of contrast, and the wheel center caps being color-matched to the paint is an underrated option. The illuminated Spirit of Ecstasy made from frosted glass is fitting, too.
Charles Blue and Grace White leather with Grace White contrast stitching and piping makes for a subtle, lovely color scheme on the inside. Instead of wood veneer there’s Piano White trim, which has a unique Star Cluster design hand-painted on the dashboard panel. That blue, white, and yellow design is also embroidered on the door panels and headrests. Instead of the standard rear bench seat the customers went for the Immersive Seating option, which adds a fixed center console, massage and further recline functions for the two rear seats, a glass partition between the cabin and cargo area, and a fridge with champagne flutes and a whisky decanter, all of which I’m sure that four-year-old will enjoy.
A true work of art
Of course, the main event is the Milky Way–inspired roof. While Rolls-Royce has made many extravagant headliner designs over the past few years, this is the first time a Starlight Headliner has been fully hand-painted, and it looks unbelievable. Rolls-Royce released a video narrated by the artist (who strangely isn’t named) that gives us a great behind-the-scenes look at the process of creating the headliner, which makes the whole thing even more special. “I’m given as much freedom as I need to give it an artistic touch and make it a one-of-a-kind piece,” she says, “looking at the Milky Way every day I’m reminded how small we are and how beautiful the world around us can be.”
Acrylic paint dries even faster on leather than it does on canvas, making this trickier than a regular-degular painting, and the artist says the irregular surface and curved sections were a real challenge that pushed her to explore new techniques. First the whole headliner was painted black, so it’s not just black leather as a base but actual paint. Then the artist sketched the design with a white china marker to get the layout and proportions right, before starting to use the acrylic paint. Acrylic blends well with water, which was helpful to get a natural flow of color and really achieve the milky look that the galaxy was named for. Over 20 successive applications of acrylic paint was used, with many different brushes to achieve depth and dimension. To get the mist effect, a makeup brush was used so the lightest layer of pigment would dry on contact, while the painted stars were created with fine brushes and a speckling technique.
But don’t worry, the headliner still has the actually illuminated “stars” that give it the Starlight name. The perforations for the fiber-optic stars were made after the painting had been completed and sealed, and each one was individually positioned and punched by hand in a way that follows the galaxy design. Sadly, Rolls hasn’t said how many illuminated stars are featured in the headliner, but in some cases it’s close to 2,000.
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Rolls-Royce
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