Most cars are built to get you from A to B. A Rolls-Royce Phantom, on the other hand, exists largely to make you wonder whether you have accidentally wandered into an extremely expensive art gallery.

The latest example is the Phantom Hummingbird, a one-off Phantom Extended Private Commission.

And it contains something you won’t find on the options list of your average family hatchback: abalone shell. Yes, shell.

Rolls-Royce has used the material for the first time in its history, combining its naturally iridescent blue-green surface with mother-of-pearl to recreate the shimmering feathers of a hummingbird. The effect changes with the light, rather like nature decided to install its own paintwork configurator.

The really extraordinary part is how it was made. Each Picnic Table contains 53 individual pieces of shell and mother-of-pearl, while the Rear Waterfall panel contains another 84 pieces. Six different techniques were attempted before the craftspeople found one capable of handling the extraordinarily thin and brittle material.

Every fragment is laser-cut 0.06mm larger than its final dimensions, then filed by hand until it fits its neighbour with no visible seam. The three panels alone required 45 hours of finishing.

And because Rolls-Royce apparently believes subtlety is something that happens to other manufacturers, the exterior is finished in Wildberry and White Sands, separated by a hand-painted Coachline featuring—naturally—a hummingbird in flight.

Inside, Creme Light leather, Ash Burr veneer, Silver Birch, Seashell carpets and a Starlight Headliner complete the transformation.

It isn’t merely a car. It is essentially a very large, very fast jewellery box that happens to have four wheels.