Car Designing Rolls-Royce Customizations: An Exclusive Designer Task

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Four Cars in a Scant Decade: As a coachbuilding designer for Rolls-Royce's most exclusive vehicles, Alex Innes has perhaps the most extraordinary job in his profession – and one with a future.

These days, anyone searching for a job as an auto designer on major job portals will come across dozens of offers, mostly from industry suppliers. Infotainment interfaces, buttons and switches, or frunk covers are the content that aspiring designers can expect to work on in the coming years. Additionally, BMW, as the only manufacturer on the portal, is looking for a creative force to enhance display graphics. Every beginning is indeed challenging – and sometimes long, long, boring until it eventually comes to designing a car. 
Except for Alex Innes: The Briton still can't quite believe his luck today, 14 years after starting his first job: "I was just in the right place at the right time." And that place is called Rolls-Royce. Even as an auto design student at Coventry University, he was able to convince partners of his ideas in several discussions. "The brand should become bolder, younger, more emotional," says Innes – and certainly sell a few more than the 500 vehicles per year back then.

Many customizations planned for the coming years

The youthful applicant apparently embodied as a person exactly what the cars themselves were yet to become. A suit jacket made of fine fabric, but also a leather wristband, a smartwatch, a T-shirt, and a three-day beard: This was not the world of awe-inspiring cathedrals like the Phantom in 2008 – but precisely the world of the new customer generation in California, China, or Arabia. And for them, the brand from the BMW Group needed a face.

The wiry designer Innes seems to fit better with today's Rolls-Royce lineup, including the sporty two-door Wraith, the convertible Dawn, or the SUV Cullinan—especially with statements like the deep black "Black Badge" editions. 
The 37-year-old has worked on various aspects of all these new Rolls models – almost ironically, coinciding with the tenfold increase in sales of the most exclusive vehicles in the entire range: the customizations. In these cases, even the bodywork is redesigned. Made by Alex Innes, the Head of Coachbuilding. Many such unique creations are set to be produced in the coming years.

Designed four unique creations so far

There is one "Sweptail" and three "Boattail": Only four vehicles have been designed from scratch with this highest level of effort for special customers. It's not so much about the double-digit million sum that such a unique creation costs the owner. Money is usually not an issue for the upscale clientele that desires a Rolls – and for mahogany root wood, real gold accents, built-in bars, porcelain inlays, gun cabinets, or rolling cinemas, the high-end Rolls-Royce customers are willing to add another hundred thousand euros to the purchase prices. 
On the other hand, a completely new body is a wish that even Rolls-Royce may not want to fulfill for everyone: "All car designers must anticipate what consumers will want in four or five years. I can only do it hand in hand with the client; almost like an architect when building a villa." However, the result should fit both the customer and the future image of Rolls-Royce. "Therefore, we are looking for people who are deeply connected to the brand," explains Innes, the special effort that every other manufacturer has avoided so far.

Inspired by architecture and shipbuilding

His initial dialogue partners in the quest for a distinctive form are the participants of the "Whisper" program. The approximately 120 Rolls-Royce Whisperers worldwide already regularly get a sneak peek into where the creative journey at Rolls-Royce is headed. Many of these individuals, who often already own a few products from Goodwood in their own garages, contribute their own ideas. From a carbon-fiber folding stool in the rear to the curve of the fenders.

Less ostentation, more "post-opulent" is the line that Innes sets for the brand. He embraces such ideas, translates them into drawings on the whiteboard or tablet and models in clay – and ultimately into a unique form for the dream vehicle. "Certainly, my enthusiasm for architecture and shipbuilding also inspires me," says the designer. 
Take the Boattail, for example: The classic stern of a luxurious J-Class sailing yacht reflects the preferences of the typical Rolls-Royce clientele – but it also harks back to vehicles from the manufacturer in the Roaring Twenties. "It's important for us to connect to cars from our history," says Innes. After all, the brand's history is a value that new competitors from Asia or the USA cannot replicate.

E-Mobility: Innes is looking forward to fewer constraints

But of course, success in the future is inconceivable without electrification and digitally connected, autonomously driving cars, even at Rolls-Royce. The days of the twelve-cylinder mountain under the hood are numbered, and with the Spectre, the first electric car is also set to enter series production in Goodwood. Body designer Innes is excited about "significantly fewer constraints for us designers." 
In a way, the brand can return to its roots. In 1903, Henry Royce initially started by manufacturing the chassis components – frame, engine, transmission, axles, brakes, and wheels – along with the temple-like radiator grille and the "Spirit of Ecstasy" figurine on top. Customers then took the chassis to coachbuilders who added the body, seats, interior trim, or dashboard.

Innes says that the skateboard-like electric platforms now make a similar division of labor possible again. His team is expected to take on the tasks that were traditionally handled by external bodybuilders in the past.

Fundamentals like software remain unchanged

However, in these new times, despite all the customization, the usual approvals from regulatory authorities around the world are still required – maintaining a close connection with the engineers at the parent company, BMW. This is likely one reason why Innes has recently moved to Munich with his wife and two daughters. 
Because fundamentals such as crash structures, software, or drivetrain are off-limits even for the most creative designer and his luxury clients. For a technical base model of his creations, like the current Phantom, there has already been a worldwide approval from authorities, and this configuration cannot be altered. With a closer spatial connection to the developers in the company, Innes can further enhance his understanding of these constraints.
 Does this impact creative freedom? "The customers will prevent that," says Innes, beaming like a child in a candy store. "That's one of the most enjoyable things about bodybuilding – we can realize anything." Well, almost anything.