a Coachbuild Collection named after Le Rossignol
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars presents Project Nightingale, a Coachbuild Collection. Named after Le Rossignol, French for ‘the nightingale’, and the name of the designers’ and engineers’ house near Henry Royce’s winter home on the Côte d’Azur, this extraordinary production concept is an open-top two-seat motor car that introduces a dramatic new expression of Rolls-Royce design.
Defined by grand proportions and underpinned with a fully electric drivetrain that delivers a uniquely silent open-top experience, Project Nightingale draws on the glamor and confidence of the 1920s and 1930s while remaining entirely of its time. Its creative vision is fully resolved – the small number of design details that remain demand entirely new manufacturing techniques that are currently under development. Only 100 examples will be created for sale, each coachbuilt by hand at the Home of Rolls-Royce at Goodwood.
Project Nightingale and the Coachbuild Collection program have been crafted for anesthetic – individuals for whom beauty is both observed and lived. These clients are connected by a shared conviction in the primacy of Rolls-Royce design, the value of the most considered motor cars in the world, and a deep appreciation for experiences that only Rolls-Royce can offer. Clients are already participating in a multi-year program of gatherings and moments curated by Rolls-Royce, immersing them in the creative and technical formation of their motor car, as well as private events in the world’s most desirable destinations.
STREAMLINERS, SPEED, AND THE DISCIPLINE OF SHEER, MONOLITHIC BEAUTY
Project Nightingale has been conceived for the uniquely design-literate clients at the heart of the Coachbuild Collection program: people for whom a perfectly resolved surface is as compelling as the glamor of driving an open-top Rolls-Royce. The motor car’s aesthetic is inspired by the principles of Streamline Modern design from the late Art Deco era, wherein precise lines and uninterrupted forms are more powerful than ornament. In that spirit, when conceiving Project Nightingale, Rolls-Royce creatives embraced sheer, monolithic volumes.
Another point of inspiration for Project Nightingale is Rolls-Royce’s experimental motor cars of the 1920s. Known as ‘EX’ models and fitted with red badges – which Project Nightingale is also equipped with – these are some of the rarest and most desirable motor cars in the marque’s history. Two of these prototypes were a particular focus: 16EX and 17EX.
These motor cars were created in 1928, at the height of the Jazz Age, just three years after the Art Deco movement was given its name. Henry Royce and his engineers cloaked two powerful Phantom chassis in lightweight aluminum bodies to achieve a new top speed for Rolls-Royce. 16EX and 17EX were designed to reach in excess of 90 miles per hour, and their torpedo-shaped form perfectly captured the audacity of Royce’s ambition: an imposing overall scale; a long bonnet; a shallow windscreen; and a snug, enveloping cabin with driver and companion set deep inside.
From these foundations, Coachbuild designers distilled three principles that directly inform Project Nightingale. ‘Upright to flowing’: the Pantheon Grille’s commanding vertical gesture transitioning into a long, graceful rear; ‘Central fuselage’, defined by a single unbroken hull line running from front to rear; and ‘Flying wings’: sculptural volumes that create tension across the overall form and pull the eye towards the rear. Project Nightingale channels these principles in a way that is both familiar to those fluent in the Rolls-Royce story, yet unapologetically contemporary and unlike anything before it.
FRONT ELEVATION
At 5.76 meters in length, Project Nightingale is almost exactly the same length as the marque’s flagship saloon, Phantom, yet devoted entirely to a two-seat convertible form. The drivetrain transforms the front elevation entirely: with no requirement for the large cooling intakes needed for an internal combustion engine, designers achieved unprecedented expanses of uninterrupted surfacing between the outermost edges of the wings and the Pantheon Grille.
The grille itself is a bold interpretation of one of the most recognizable icons in luxury. Its generous surround – almost a meter in width – appears to be carved from a solid block of stainless steel, with 24 vanes set deeply within it. The Spirit of Ecstasy figurine is integrated on top of the grille in a subtly recessed section, its lines flowing backwards and dissolving into the bonnet, as though the figurine is moving at speed through water, and the metalwork is parting gently around her.
Beneath the grille, a structured section widens at 45 degrees from each lower corner before dropping down vertically, from which a carbon fiber apron projects forward, traced by an elegant chrome belt. This creates the effect that the grille is presented on a structural plinth, recalling the great Art Deco skyscrapers whose uppermost decorative floors are supported by solid geometric forms beneath them.
At the outermost edge of the wing is Project Nightingale’s most progressive statement: slender, vertically orientated headlamp assemblies. This treatment is emphasized with polished stainless-steel bands that run the full length of the motor car from the bottom of the headlamps all the way to the tail lamps.
TORPEDO ‘CENTRAL FUSELAGE’ IN PROFILE
In profile, the full impact of Project Nightingale’s driver-oriented, torpedo-shaped design is revealed. An expansive bonnet gives way to the dramatically raked windscreen, framed on each side by a stainless-steel form housing a delicate quarterlight window, inspired by the Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupé. Behind it is a compact cabin for two, set deep within the body, before the rear deck falls and tapers towards a dramatically low trailing edge. This is a motor car that is almost entirely bonnet and tail, its two-seat cabin an intimate counterpoint to the grandeur of the volumes surrounding it.
A single hull line runs continuously along Project Nightingale from front to rear, inspired by the line that separates a yacht’s hull from its superstructure. It begins at sculpted ‘Pinnacles’ on the front wings – a subtle reference to heritage Rolls-Royce designs – before flowing uninterrupted to the trailing edge. Set intentionally high, it creates the sensation of being enveloped deep inside the motor car. An upswept volume behind the headrests rises like a turned collar, cosseting driver and companion against the elements, integrating the height of the headrests into the sculpture of the motor car itself.
Beneath, a progressive negative sculpture in the lower bodyside deepens the impression of a central fuselage, balanced by a solid carbon fiber sill that makes an understated historical reference to the running boards of prominent heritage Rolls-Royce motor cars.
To add restrained decoration to the rear of the motor car, a second lower polished stainless-steel band is introduced just behind the center of the rear wheels, its position and proportion recalling the gentle white water of a sailing yacht’s wake.
Significant development has been focused on the surfacing, ensuring that Project Nightingale appears to have been carved from a single, solid billet. To minimize visual noise, engineers developed a handle for the coach doors that incorporates a hidden lock mechanism and a discreetly integrated indicator lamp. The Rolls-Royce ‘Badge of Honour’ is also distilled into an elegant stainless-steel ‘Double R’ monogram, placed sparingly on each front wing and in the center of the luggage compartment.
Against this serenity, 24-inch wheels – the largest fitted to a Rolls-Royce – strike a considered contrast. Their directional design is inspired by the propellers of a yacht viewed from beneath the waterline: forms that appear to be in continuous motion even when the motor car is stationary. The surface also includes subtle, machined stripes, creating the impression of wire wheel spokes moving at speed, while aluminum flakes within the black finish introduce a delicate sparkle as the wheel turns.
A TAIL OF CONSEQUENCE
Towards the rear, the surfacing swells around the rear wheel arches, creating an impression of planted, muscular strength that balances the overall design’s grace. The deck above is purposefully horizontal, broken by two rear lamps of exceptional precision: these slim clusters fall from the upper surface to the lower at an almost perfect right angle. This striking treatment is further dramatized by the Piano Boot, which opens sideways on a cantilever, both recalling the ceremony of a grand piano and transforming a functional moment into a considered act of arrival.
A single longitudinal brake lamp is placed directly at the center-line on the rear of Project Nightingale, recalling the speed stripes of great Streamline Modern design. Directly below, a recessed chrome number plate surround is set into the lower rear face with the precision of a watch bezel: a small detail that rewards the closest attention.
Beneath, the same precision extends to the engineering. The bold lower transom diffuser, known as the Aero Afterdeck, is enabled thanks to the use of a fully electric drivetrain, which eliminates exhaust pipework. This single carbon fiber piece ensures stability at high speed without the addition of a spoiler, preserving the uninterrupted flow of Project Nightingale’s elegant silhouette.
OPEN-AIR SERENITY, CLOSED-ROOF DRAMA
Project Nightingale becomes an exercise in serene, open-air travel with the roof lowered. With it raised, the character transforms entirely, creating a commanding, coupé-like presence.
Within the roof itself, a unique sound-deadening material combines cashmere, fabric and high-performance composites. Paired with Rolls-Royce’s fully electric drivetrain, which generates virtually no mechanical noise, the marque’s acoustic engineers aim to achieve an exceptionally serene experience whether the soft top roof is raised or lowered, while still preserving the sounds that enhance the romance of driving – such as raindrops on canvas.
The near-silent sensation of driving even early Project Nightingale prototypes with the roof lowered is described by Rolls-Royce designers and engineers as akin to traveling by sailing yacht. The fully electric drivetrain generates virtually no mechanical noise, and wind noise is all but eliminated: what remains is the world itself – the sound of ocean waves breaking on the shore, the movement of air through trees, the particular silence of open countryside at speed, the chorus of birdsong.
THE INTERIOR SUITE: A WORLD FOR TWO
It was this extraordinary serenity that inspired the centerpiece of Project Nightingale’s interior. During an early prototype drive, Rolls-Royce designers were able to hear birdsong with unusual clarity. Intrigued by this experience – and in tribute to the motor car’s name – they began studying recordings of nightingales and analyzing the distinctive sound-wave patterns created by their song. From these studies emerged an idea: to translate the rhythm of birdsong into a visual form that could envelop those within the motor car.
The result is the Starlight Breeze suite – a flowing constellation of ambient illumination comprising 10,500 individual ‘stars’ in three subtly varied sizes. Named after the gentle movement of air suggested by the nightingale’s song, the pattern of light draws directly from the soundwave forms studied by the designers. Extending from the front of each door around the driver and companion’s seat, the illumination wraps those within in their own celestial field, transforming melody into light.
The Starlight Breeze illumination is carried within a sculptural interior form called the ‘Horseshoe’, which rises behind the seats and frames the occupants in a protective architectural gesture.
The leather of the door card is overlaid as a raised section recalling a finely crafted saddle. This motif continues through the centre console in a leather-covered saddle armrest – split into two delicate pieces – which aligns precisely with the Coachline that runs the length of the bonnet, through the cabin to the rear central brake light.
On opening the coach door, the armrest glides rearwards automatically to reveal the Spirit of Ecstasy rotary controller. It is operated with an exceptionally tactile stainless-steel collar formed with four grooves reminiscent of contemporary haute joaillerie. Within each groove, the metal is facetedand then glass-blasted, delicately subduing the controller’s high polish. This jewelled treatment extends throughout the interior to the gear selector and remaining rotary controls, which are sparingly curated to just five in total.
At the touch of a button, the armrest moves further to reveal a concealed compartment for personal items. Polished individual aluminum cupholders – machined from billet – add a further jewel-like accent, and a hidden shelf behind the seats incorporates space for hand luggage: a considered and practical gesture for a motor car conceived for long, unhurried journeys.
BESPOKE EXPRESSIONS OF PROJECT NIGHTINGALE
For Project Nightingale, Rolls-Royce is developing an entirely new colour and material palette and set of Bespoke features, designed and reserved exclusively for this specific Coachbuild Collection. These will not be available on any other Rolls-Royce motor car. Each of the 100 examples will be meticulously curated with its commissioning client to reflect their personal taste, character and vision.
THE ‘EX’ MOTOR CAR PRESENTED TODAY
The motor car presented today reflects the creative spirit that shaped Project Nightingale’s design story. The exterior paint finish draws inspiration from the experimental Rolls-Royce 17EX of 1928, though it is interpreted rather than replicated. The pale, solid blue hue – named Côte d’Azur Blue – is infused with subtle red flakes that reveal themselves in changing light, a discreet reference to the red badges fitted to the ‘EX’ motor cars in period, and used today to denote Project Nightingale’s status as a production concept. The exterior is completed with a silver-colored convertible soft top roof.
The interior hues evoke the atmosphere of the Côte d’Azur. The seats are finished in soft pastel Charles Blue, paired with a warm Grace White tone, creating an environment of gentle, sunlit calm. Deep Navy seat inserts introduce contrast and depth, while delicate flashes of Peony Pink appear within the fascia surround and headrests, inspired by the wild blooms of the Riviera. The palette is resolved with Openpore Blackwood laid in a ‘V’ shape that opens upwards, encouraging the eye to the sky above.
ENGINEERED ELEGANCE
Project Nightingale is powered by the marque’s fully electric drivetrain. For a Coachbuild Collection conceived for the most discerning and design-literate clients in the world, the qualities of electric power are deeply considered. The silent and effortless delivery of power amplifies every characteristic that has defined the Rolls-Royce experience for more than a century, and the nature of this powertrain unlocks completely new design possibilities. Further engineering details will be shared as the motor car progresses through its global testing and development program.
HENRY ROYCE’S LEGACY, PROJECT NIGHTINGALE’S PROMISE
Project Nightingale marks the beginning of the Coachbuild Collection story. The individuals who inspired it represent a growing community of passionate clients who seek Rolls-Royce design at its most ambitious and uncompromising. In drawing on the experimental spirit of Henry Royce and the glamour of the Art Deco era, it is a motor car that looks to the past with the confidence of a marque that has always known its future. As Project Nightingale progresses through its global testing and development program, Rolls-Royce will share further details of the motor car, its engineering and the extraordinary experiences that await its 100 clients.
Entry to the Coachbuild Collection program is by invitation only and client deliveries will commence from 2028.
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