On Saturday the 14th of October, sections of the Western Hemisphere will be bathed in darkness, with the moon set to obscure up to 80 percent of the sun in regions of the United States, Mexico, Central America, and South America. To honour the celestial phenomenon, Rolls-Royce has created a limited-edition bespoke series inspired by the solar eclipse, with each of the 25 examples already spoken for.
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Part of the British marque’s Bespoke collection, the Rolls-Royce Black Badge Ghost Ékleipsis captures the gold-tinged darkness of the rare celestial event. The exterior captures the ethereal light cast by a total solar eclipse through the shade Lyrical Copper; incorporating powered copper pigment, it appears almost black until it catches the light, wherein a rich iridescent sheen is revealed. A bright orange shade of Mandarin coats the inserts below the Pantheon grille as well as the brake callipers, recalling the ring of light faintly visible during a solar eclipse. The same shade appears on the hand-painted coachline, with a dotted motif used to represent the “transition from sunlight to darkness.”
The Rolls-Royce Black Badge Ghost Ékleipsis sees the signature starlight headliner embedded with over a thousand miniscule lights to emulate the night sky. An animation is activated upon closing the doors and starting the engine, which sees a circle of 940 ‘stars’ represent the bright corona of light around the lunar silhouette joined by an additional 192 LEDs which act as the stars become visible during daytime when a total eclipse occurs.
The animation runs for precisely seven minutes and 31 seconds, the maximum duration of a total solar eclipse, after which the full constellation of stars in the night sky are illuminated. According to Rolls-Royce, perfecting the design and sequencing of the starlight headliner animation took a year to develop.
The fascia of the dashboard takes on an equally cosmic tone, playing host to an intricate artwork comprising 1846 laser-etched ‘stars’. The stars appear to emanate from a bespoke timepiece with a 0.5-carat diamond embedded into the clock’s bezel, recalling the ‘diamond ring’ effect wherein a single point of light becomes visible immediately before and after the moon moves in front of the sun.
The upholstery nods to the moment at the closing of a solar eclipse, where viewers are bathed in a golden twilight. This phenomenon is captured through bi-coloured seats with a unique perforated artwork — the latter touch first seen on the similarly celestial-inspired Black Badge Cullinan Blue Shadow — comprising over 200,000 individual perforations. The two-tone effect sees the Mandarin leather clad in black leather, with the perforations revealing the bold hue within.
Words by Theo Rosen
