Every picture tells a story – and Rolls-Royce has turned its flagship Phantom model into a gallery on wheels to chronicle the limousine's 100-year history.

With a solid gold Spirit of Ecstasy figurine at its prow, each of 25 special edition anniversary cars – priced at £3.5 million – showcases a century of illustrated tales. 

These stories have been retold by the car maker's craft experts across the interior – including on doors, seats, dashboard and roof linings – in a three-year project involving more than 40,000 hours of work.

The intricate artwork has been produced using 160,000 embroidery stitches across 45 individual panels and a combination of fabrics, leathers, and wood, cutting edge 3D marquetry and ink-layering, laser-etched designs, as well as 24-carat gold leaf to map out key journeys. Plus 440,000 stitches in the starlight roof.

The in-car images celebrate key figures, notable customers, significant models, and important journeys, places and moments that defined Phantom's first 100 years. 

This includes the homes of co-founder and engineering genius Sir Henry Royce's summer home at West Wittering, in Sussex – eight miles from Rolls-Royce's current home at Goodwood, near Chichester – and Villa Mimosa Le Rayol-Canadel-sur-Mer, where he spent his winters.

Some images contain teasing, hidden meanings or 'Easter Eggs' for those in know – or known only to those wealthy enough to buy one of the cars and who will be let in on the secrets. 

And those buyers have not been in short supply – what Rolls-Royce dubs its Phantom Centenary Private Collection is already sold out.

Described as the most complex and technologically ambitious Rolls-Royce collection to date, the cars celebrate eight generations of Phantom with a string of craft technology 'firsts' – including 24-carat gold leafing to create most intricate woodwork ever.

New technology developed for the project, including 3D ink layering, allowed previously unimaginable details – some just 0.13 mm in height – ranging from a boat sailing across the sea to location names on a map. 

Powered by a mighty 571hp 6.75-litre V12 engine, it accelerates from 0 to 62mph in 5.4 seconds up to a top speed restricted to 155mph, but has just 18mpg fuel economy. 

It comes with a specially designed cover finished in Arctic white and detailed with 24-carat gold.

The Spirit of Ecstasy figurine is cast in solid 18-carat gold and plated in 24-carat gold for a flawless, tarnish-resistant finish.

Rolls-Royce chief Chris Brownridge described the car as 'an uncompromising work of art'.

Classic Hollywood glamour 

In a nod to the flowing silhouette of 1930s Phantoms, the bespoke two-tone exterior of the long-wheelbase limousine – contrasting Arctic White sides with a black upper body - is designed to evoke 'the timeless elegance of a black-and-white film star' and 'the golden age of Hollywood' when Phantoms carried glamorous screen icons to movie premieres.

A specially developed finish includes iridescent champagne-coloured particles of crushed glass to give the exterior a metallic shimmer.

For the first time, the 'RR' badges front, rear, and each side are in 24-carat gold and white enamel. 

Each of the Phantom's disc wheels are engraved with 25 lines – honouring the 25 motor cars in the collection and together, making 100 lines to celebrate the centenary year.

An interior canvas

Phantom's interior is a 'canvas' on which the story of the car's centenary are 'painted' – on textiles and leather which recalls, recalling the marque's early years when the chauffeur's front seat was finished in hardwearing leather and the rear cabin in luxurious fabrics.

The rear seats of the Phantom Centenary cars with their storytelling artwork are inspired by the 1926 'Phantom of Love' which was commissioned with handwoven French Aubusson tapestries.

The stories unfold across three distinct layers.

First, the background in high-resolution print, shows places and objects from Phantom's history – from the marque's original Conduit Street premises in London to Henry Royce's oil paintings of Southern France.

The second layer portrays great Phantoms of the past in finely drawn detail.

The third and top layer consists of abstract embroideries representing seven significant owners from every generation of Phantom save the current one.

Across the full composition, this intricate craftwork has more than 160,000 stitches and spans 45 individual panels fitted precisely around the curvatures of the seats and inspired by Savile Row tailoring techniques.

This complex fabric was developed over 12 months and combined with a high-resolution printing process using specially adapted inks and techniques devised exclusively for the project. 

It features embroideries, designed to have a uniquely hand-drawn quality – described as 'sketching with thread' to emulate a pencil line in textile form.

Leather on the front seats features laser-etched artwork based on hand drawings by a designer evoking the draftsman's craft. 

Motifs include a rabbit design, which is a nod to the 'Roger Rabbit' codename for parent group BMW's relaunch of Rolls-Royce in 2003, and a seagull which was the codename for the original 1923 Phantom I prototype.

The series also features the most intricate woodwork ever created for a Rolls-Royce.

Door panels which depict Phantom's 'most significant and formative journeys' were developed over a year and rendered in stained Blackwood.

Images include geographical maps, winding routes, sweeping landscapes, floral elements, and depictions of experimental motor cars intersect to form an artwork alive with Phantom's heritage.

The rear doors portray the coastline of Le Rayol-Canadel-sur-Mer, where Sir Henry Royce spent his winters at Villa Mimosa, along with local plants including pine, cypress, ferns and palm. A section of the rear passenger door recreates one of Sir Henry's original oil paintings of the region.

The front passenger door shows the landscape around his summer residence Elmstead at West Wittering, in Sussex, just eight miles from Rolls-Royce's current home at Goodwood near Chichester.

The driver's door depicts the epic 4,500-mile journey of the first-ever Goodwood-era Phantom under BMW ownership, which crossed the Australian continent from Perth.

Roads representing key journeys for the luxury brand are picked out in 24-carat gold painstaking cut and placed from squares of gold leaf just 0.1 micrometres thick. 

The exact locations of Royce's homes —are marked with a single gold-leaf dot just 2.76 mm in diameter. 

The golden roads on the doors' wooden surfaces continue as golden threads on embroidered leather panels. Details of the maps and landscapes are stitched in black.

Depictions of the original 1925 Phantom I and the current Phantom VIII are individually etched on the rear picnic tables and the models are mirrored in embroidery on the tables' leather-finished backs. 

The Piano Black veneer is infused with gold dust, echoing the central rotary dial which is also plated with 24-carat gold.

Phantom's story in the stars

The embroidered Starlight Headliner in the roof captures moments from Phantom's history in 440,000 stitches.

This includes references to the mulberry tree under which Henry Royce was photographed in his West Wittering garden; distinctive square-crowned trees in the courtyard of the firm's Goodwood headquarters; honeybees of which the firm has 250,000 in its Apiary; the Phantom Rose grown exclusively in the grounds; and a bird motif representing speed record-breaking Sir Malcolm Campbell's Phantom II, known as the 'Bluebird'.

And hidden amongst the mulberry leaves is a reference to the locking mechanism on the vault door at 'The Bank' – the secret 1990s design studio in London where the first Phantom under BMW ownership was drafted.

Anthology gallery

Spanning the dashboard is a sculpted row of 50 3D-printed aluminium sheets - resembling pages in a book as the reader leafs through them.

Each 'page' in this Anthology Gallery is composed of sculpted letters which together form quotes from a century of press coverage.

Rolls-Royce said: 'The Rolls-Royce designers, engineers and artisans poured their skill and imagination into what has become their magnum opus.'

Head of Bespoke design Martina Starke said: 'A record number of designers spent a year immersed in the motor car's rich history, uncovering the stories that shaped its legend.

'Their research was distilled into 77 motifs, each capturing a defining moment in Phantom's journey'.

Phil Fabre de la Grange, head of Bespoke said: 'Developed over three years, this project uses new techniques to blend metal, wood, paint, fabric, leather, and embroidery into a single, stunning composition. The surfaces read like a book revealing 100 years of Phantom's history.'

Colour and Material Designer Celina Mettang said: 'Every embroidered element was digitally re-drawn by artisans who selected specific stitch application for every stroke.'

Her colleague Katrin Lehmann added: 'We drew on an extraordinary range of sources – original texts, diaries, photographs and paintings – to create a composition that weaves together many threads of Phantom's story.'