The Billionaire's Ceramic Rolls-Royce

A review of the custom Rolls-Royce Phantom Oribe

- Robert Stedman

Rolls-Royce is a legendry car maker that is synonymous with luxury, elegance, style, and comfort. A short while back, the company teamed up with renowned French luxury brand Hermès to create a very special one-off motorcar.

The result of this collaboration was the Rolls-Royce Phantom Oribe: A custom creation for the Japanese entrepreneur, art collector, and supercar cognoscente, Yusaku Maezawa. The idea was to build a type of ‘land jet’ that provides a driving experience and a look that’s similar to what’s experienced in private air travel.

Yusaku Maezawa was born in 1975 and is used to making headlines. For instance, he has insisted that he will be the first space passenger to fly to the moon no matter the cost. The founder of Zozotown, an online fashion marketplace for Japanese and Western fashion brands, Maezawa has an estimated net worth of more than US$3 billion, according to Forbes magazine.

The exterior and interior of this unique Phantom was designed and handcrafted together with bespoke specialists from Rolls-Royce and Hermès, using materials, techniques, and traditional know-how from both the carmaker and the fashion house.