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There aren’t many surfaces left on a Rolls-Royce that haven’t already been perfected. The paint is glassy. The coachlines are drawn by hand. The interior is stitched like a private jet. Now they’ve gone and taken a laser to the bonnet.
The one-off Phantom Arabesque is the first Rolls-Royce ever to feature a fully laser-engraved bonnet, inspired by mashrabiya latticework, a defining element of traditional Middle Eastern architecture. You’ll see it across homes, palaces and courtyards throughout the region. It creates privacy while still letting in light and air. Functional, beautiful and deeply tied to place.
Rolls says this wasn’t about adding a pattern for the sake of it. As Michelle Lusby from Private Office Dubai describes it, it’s “one of the region’s most enduring design languages”, and the brief was to interpret that in a way that still feels unmistakably Rolls-Royce.
On the Phantom, that idea stretches across the whole bonnet.
Five Years to Cut Into Paint
Rolls-Royce says the engraving process took five years to develop. The bonnet is painted in a darker tone first, sealed under layers of clear coat, then finished in a lighter top colour. A laser cuts through 145 to 190 microns of that upper layer to reveal the darker paint beneath. That’s thinner than a human hair.
The pattern isn’t added afterwards. It’s carved directly into the paint, then hand-sanded to keep the finish even. Tobias Sicheneder, who heads up the Exterior Surface Centre, describes the result as a surface that’s technically precise but still visually alive. “Phantom Arabesque is the first expression of a technique that opens entirely new creative possibilities for future clients.”
Which tells you this goes beyond one car. It’s a new tool Rolls now has in its back pocket.
The Rest of the Phantom Doesn’t Get Lost
The engraving might catch your eye first, but step inside, and you’ll find even more eye-candy.
It wears a two-tone Bespoke finish in Diamond Black and Silver. There’s a single hand-painted coachline, lifted with its own mashrabiya motif. Up front, you get the illuminated Pantheon grille framed in Dark Chrome and an uplit Spirit of Ecstasy.
Inside, the full-width Gallery houses a marquetry artwork in Blackwood and Black Bolivar, echoing the same geometric pattern. There’s Selby Grey and Black leather, with mashrabiya motifs embroidered into the headrests, a design that’s even found in the illuminated treadplates.
Why The Arabesque Matters
The Phantom Arabesque came out of Private Office Dubai, one of Rolls-Royce’s most exclusive commissioning hubs.
The Middle East doesn’t buy the most Rolls-Royces. The US still wins on volume. What the region does lead in is how much money is spent on each car. And when that cheque gets bigger, so do the ideas.
That appetite is showing up in the numbers. In 2024, Rolls-Royce reported record Bespoke growth, with average Bespoke content value rising 10 per cent per car year-on-year, the highest level in the company’s history. The Middle East was the largest Bespoke region by average value per car, ahead of North America and Europe.
We’ve seen it before. Desert-inspired Cullinan SUVs commissioned out of the Gulf. Phantom Dentelle, a one-off Phantom that turned couture lace into more than 230,000 stitches inside the cabin. The rise of the all-electric Black Badge Spectre coupe with a younger generation of collectors. It’s a region that keeps pushing the brief further.
That’s how you end up with a laser-engraved bonnet.
Mashrabiya wasn’t picked out of a catalogue. It reflects a region that’s actively influencing what modern Rolls-Royce looks like. And more broadly, it’s a reminder that the centre of luxury doesn’t always sit in London, New York or Milan. Right now, a lot of that influence sits further east.
Not Your Average Phantom
Let’s be honest. This isn’t for you or me. It’s for someone who already has a garage full of bespoke cars and wants their next one to carry something more permanent than another wheel option. And with the Phantom Arabesque, there’s a real level of commitment. You can repaint a panel. You can’t un-engrave it.
In a world where luxury often shouts above the rest, the Arabesque asks you to look closer.
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