BrandsRolls-Royce Phantom Regatta — A One-of-One Land Yacht for the Solent
Official press image of the Rolls-Royce Phantom Regatta. | © Rolls-Royce Motor Cars
Rolls-Royce has revealed its latest one-of-one Bespoke commission, and it is exactly as extraordinary as that description suggests. The Phantom Regatta is a Phantom Extended built to honour the racing yachts and summer regattas of England’s South Coast — a subject chosen because from the Goodwood Estate, where the car will make its public debut on July 9, views stretch directly towards Chichester Harbour and the Solent. Every detail of this car, from the paint split on its flanks to the coordinates hidden inside its air vents, traces back to the water visible from the window of the factory where it was built.
The Phantom Regatta’s most immediately distinctive feature is its two-tone paintwork — a hand-laid combination of Regatta Blue on the upper body and English White below, divided at precisely the line where a racing yacht’s hull meets the waterline. The division is not a simple horizontal stripe. It follows the Phantom Extended’s complex bodywork surfaces, requiring careful hand application to maintain its nautical precision across a car that measures 5,982mm from nose to tail. The 22-inch fully polished disc wheels carry the same theme: their mirror-like surface is intended to reference the polished stainless steel winches found aboard competitive racing yachts, and in direct sunlight they deliver exactly that effect — a continuous reflective band at each corner of the car.
No mechanical changes have been made. The Phantom Regatta carries the standard Phantom Extended’s 6.75-litre twin-turbocharged V12, producing 563 horsepower and 664 lb-ft of torque, which sends the 2,560-kilogram car from 0–60mph in around 5.2 seconds on the way to a governed 155mph. For a commission of this nature, that is entirely beside the point. The powertrain is not the story.
Step inside and Rolls-Royce’s Bespoke craftspeople have built a cabin designed to evoke a sailing yacht under full sail. The front compartment is finished in Navy Blue leather — representing the deep water — while the rear passenger suite transitions into Grace White, suggesting the billowing canvas of a mainsail. Turquoise RR monograms, dual-tone stitching and matching piping run throughout. The dashboard and rear door panels carry a combination of Piano Milori and Open Pore Royal Walnut veneers, finished in satin across the waterfall section and door panels, adding a warmth and texture that contrasts deliberately with the crisp leather surfaces around them.
The Gallery artwork spanning the full width of the dashboard is titled Watercolour — and it is exactly that. A Rolls-Royce in-house artist painted it directly onto an open-pore wooden substrate using specially developed paints and a new blending technique that was refined across numerous test panels over two weeks before the final version was applied to the car. The result captures the movement and depth of open water in a way that photographic reproduction or conventional printing cannot replicate, because the grain of the wood beneath the paint surface catches light differently as the viewing angle changes.
Phantom Regatta is the work of our designers, engineers and craftspeople at the Home of Rolls-Royce at Goodwood, inspired by the waters on their doorstep. It brings the spirit of yachting — its colours, materials, and sense of speed — into the calm of a Phantom Extended.
— Phil Fabre de la Grange, Head of Bespoke, Rolls-Royce Motor CarsThe rear picnic tables are among the most labour-intensive elements of any Bespoke Rolls-Royce commission in recent memory. Each table required approximately 120 hours to complete. They are built from 16 individually cut Royal Walnut planks, all sourced from the same section of timber to ensure a consistent grain running across the full width. Each plank was laid by hand from the centre outward to create a symmetrical bookmatched pattern. Between the planks, 2mm strips of Black Bolivar wood replicate the appearance of traditional deck caulking — the compound used between the boards of a working yacht deck to keep water out. The effect is unmistakably nautical and, once you understand how many hours of handwork it represents, genuinely affecting.
Above the cabin, the Bespoke Starlight Headliner places 1,307 individually positioned fibre-optic lights in a pattern representing the swirling tidal currents that surround the Isle of Wight. The illuminated door panels add a second layer of light after dark, completing what Rolls-Royce describes as a full atmospheric environment rather than simply a decorated ceiling. The car’s most discreet detail is reserved for those who know to look. Each “eyeball” air vent on the dashboard is engraved with a set of geographic coordinates — but they are only visible when the vent is physically tilted forward, requiring a deliberate gesture to reveal them. The passenger-side vent displays the coordinates of Goodwood House (50°52’12”N 00°44’24”W); the driver-side vent carries those of the Home of Rolls-Royce (50°51’13”N 00°44’40”W). The two points sit less than a mile apart — and together they fix the Phantom Regatta to the exact place where it was conceived and hand-built.
| Base Vehicle | Rolls-Royce Phantom Extended |
| Commission Type | Bespoke — one-of-one, already sold |
| Overall Length | 5,982mm (235.5 inches) |
| Engine | 6.75L twin-turbocharged V12 — unchanged |
| Power | 563 hp (420 kW) / 664 lb-ft (900 Nm) |
| 0–60mph | ~5.2 seconds |
| Top Speed | 155mph (governed) |
| Exterior Finish | Regatta Blue over English White — hand-laid two-tone |
| Paint Inspiration | The line where a yacht’s hull meets the water |
| Wheels | 22-inch fully polished disc — referencing polished yacht winches |
| Front Interior Leather | Navy Blue |
| Rear Interior Leather | Grace White |
| Veneers | Piano Milori + Open Pore Royal Walnut (satin finish) |
| Gallery Artwork | ‘Watercolour’ — hand-painted, specially developed technique |
| Picnic Tables | 16 Royal Walnut planks + Black Bolivar caulking — ~120 hrs each |
| Starlight Headliner | 1,307 fibre-optic lights — tidal currents of the Isle of Wight |
| Illuminated Doors | Yes — complement the headliner |
| Hidden Coordinates (passenger vent) | 50°52’12”N 00°44’24”W — Goodwood House |
| Hidden Coordinates (driver vent) | 50°51’13”N 00°44’40”W — Home of Rolls-Royce |
| Henry Royce Connection | Sir Henry Royce’s home, Elmstead, West Wittering — 8 miles from HQ |
| Public Debut | Goodwood Festival of Speed, July 9–12, 2026 |
| Price | Not disclosed — one-of-one Bespoke commission |
The geographic connection between this commission and its debut location is unusually tight, even by Rolls-Royce’s standards. The Goodwood Estate sits on a ridge above the West Sussex coastal plain — on a clear day, Chichester Harbour and the Solent are visible from the grounds. Cowes Week, the most celebrated regatta on the English racing calendar, takes place less than 25 miles away as the crow flies, directly across the water the Phantom Regatta’s headliner maps. Sir Henry Royce spent much of his later life at Elmstead in West Wittering, a village directly on that same stretch of coast, just eight miles from the factory his company now occupies. The Phantom Regatta is, in a very precise sense, a car built on the doorstep of the water that inspired it — and its first public appearance will take place on the ridge from which that water is visible.
The Phantom Regatta is a genuinely excellent Bespoke commission — one of those cases where the concept and the execution are in perfect alignment from first glance to last hidden detail. The hidden coordinates in the air vents are the kind of detail that separates a Rolls-Royce Bespoke commission from every other luxury car manufacturer’s idea of personalisation: a detail that requires specific knowledge and a deliberate physical gesture to access, existing purely as a private acknowledgement between the car and its owner of where it came from and where it belongs. The 120-hour picnic tables are equally telling — not because the hours are a marketing figure, but because the finished result looks like a yacht deck in a way that only 120 hours of hand-laid walnut planks can achieve. If there is a criticism, it is only that we will never see it again after Goodwood — which is, of course, precisely the point.