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I toured Rolls Royce’s new NYC ‘Private Office’ where wealthy buyers can customize their $500,000+ cars — see inside

October 24, 20240
The Private Office is Rolls-Royce’s first in the US.

Brittany Chang/Business Insider

The British automaker’s new outpost isn’t a street-level showroom where prospective buyers can see a Phantom or Ghost up close.

It’s where clients go (if they’ve been invited) to transform their new Phantom, Spectre, Ghost, or Cullinan into a multimillion-dollar piece of bespoke drivable art.

Like most Private Office clients, it’ll likely be their third — or 33rd — Rolls-Royce purchase.

The Private Office is on the 8th floor of a nondescript building in New York’s industrial-chic Meatpacking District.
The Private Office has color samples that aren’t available at Rolls-Royce’s dealerships.

Brittany Chang/Business Insider

The team can color-match your ride to your favorite sweater, inlay your pet’s paw print onto the veneer, or, as one koi fish collector requested, etch a fish into the treadplate that illuminates when the doors open.

In the month since it launched, the office has already seen several clients, including someone who wanted 2 commissions, Gina Koutros, head of the office, told BI.
The hallway of fins leads to the main office space.

Brittany Chang/Business Insider

The Private Office plans to cater client meals from local Michelin-recognized restaurants and chefs to replicate this intimacy.

“If a client wants to spend two or three hours with us, go, and then come back for a glass of Champagne, this place is there for them to come in and feel like they’re in someone’s home,” Koutros said.

It just so happens that this “home” has an in-house Rolls-Royce designer and a wall of 42 chrome fins, a reference to its iconic grilles.

There are several other Rolls-Royce Easter eggs throughout the office.
The automaker said 90 pairs of hands work on each of its vehicles.

Brittany Chang/Business Insider

The cluster of dichroic crystals — collectively called “90 Pairs of Hands” after the number of people who work on each Rolls-Royce vehicle — bleeds various colors at different lengths throughout the day.

Clients could see all of the art piece’s iterations by the end of their design process.
Clients can design their dream Rolls-Royce from scratch.

Brittany Chang/Business Insider

Common commission requests include the celebration of birthdays and weddings.

Cara Vitry, the company’s regional bespoke designer, told BI that one client is doing both — customizing their Phantom to celebrate their recent marriage renewal and the birth of their daughter.

The starlight headliner would match the night sky of their daughter’s birth, and pieces of the wedding dress would be encased inside the gallery. It would also feature a one-of-a-kind color created by sampling the couple’s wedding photos.

“Our clients bring the stories, and we craft the stories into a commission that they can drive in,” Vitry said.

One buyer visits New York four times yearly to meet with the portfolio manager handling their inheritance.
Rolls-Royce’s Private Office clients have been trending younger.

Brittany Chang/Business Insider

Another frequently commutes from Miami to New York, while some are farmers from the Midwest (according to Koutros, some of Rolls-Royce’s top clients work in agriculture).

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the automaker had yet to deliver a million-dollar car in the US, according to Spahn.

Now, it’s just another day at the automaker’s Private Office.