It was 99 years ago that Charles Rolls and Henry Royce first met at the Midland Hotel in Manchester. To commemorate the meeting, the automaker has created a one-of-one commission celebrating the city.
The Manchester Ghost was designed by Ieuan Hatherall and Rolls-Royce‘s team of artisans, who found particular significance in the automaker and city’s shared history.
“I wanted to create a highly contemporary yet elegant iteration of Ghost, honoring the significance of the city for the marque and celebrating the accomplishments of the people of Manchester whilst also incorporating the mélange of Manchester’s modern and traditional architecture,” said Hatherall.
Long a symbol for Manchester‘s reputation as a hive of industry and work, the Manchester Bee was incorporated into the several areas of the car. Found outside and in, the bee is most prominently displayed on the C-pillar, in Turchese (or turquoise) alongside pin striping that plays against the traditional silver paint that dominates the exterior of the Manchester Ghost.
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Meanwhile, the bee can be found in a more familiar yellow, embroidered within and alongside the Turchese highlights that are found on the front and rear seats. Between the back chairs, the names of several of the city’s landmark locations can also be found, in a tone-on-tone embroidery.
On the trim plate that covers the passenger side dashboard, Rolls-Royce implemented its now-familiar use of dots and lights. However, instead of representing stars as seen from below, in this case they represent the lights of the city, as seen from above. The largest dot represents the Midland Hotel, where the first meeting between Charles Rolls and Henry Royce took place. The title of the poem “This is the Place,” by Tony Walsh, can also be seen on the fascia.
To honor Manchester’s place in history as the site of the creation of the first stored programmed electronic digital computer, the letters “MCR” are inscribed in binary inside the cabin doors. That isn’t the last technology that the Ghost celebrates, though. Its headliner depicts a Graphene lattice pattern, which was inspired by the material that was first isolated by two professors at the University of Manchester in 2004.
“The Manchester Ghost brings together the Home of Rolls-Royce where each motor car is hand built and the city where the original idea for Rolls-Royce was born,” said Boris Weletzky, the regional manager of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars for the U.K. “Our accomplished artisans, designers and engineers at the Home of Rolls-Royce […] have created a truly remarkable motor car, capturing the city’s history, and the city today.”
