Rolls-Royce Apparition concept messes with our heads

Filed under: Concept Cars, Rolls-Royce, Design/Style, Luxury

Rolls-Royce Apparition concept by Jeremy Westerlund – Click above for high-res image gallery

To say that we see a lot of student car designs here at Autoblog would be a gross understatement. We see hundreds of ‘em. Some are more interesting than others, but every once in a while, a design comes across our desks that takes our impression of what a car can look like and completely turns it on its head. This is one such example.

Dreamt up by one Jeremy Westerlund while studying at the Art Center school of design, the Rolls-Royce Apparition is a rolling trompe-l’œil that at once both reaches back into the automaker’s history and extends into the future.

The design is based around the old motor carriages that had a chauffeur sitting up front, exposed to the elements, with the passengers coddled inside. Like most contemporary Rolls models, the front is utterly dominated by the prominent grille and hood ornament. It features unique touches like real mahogany inserts in the wheels, and the imposing overall shape is long and low: the designer took his cues from sailing yachts, and even though the model is built to 1:4 scale, it’s still nearly six feet long. If such an extreme example of fantasy ever became reality, it would measure 279 inches overall – that’s over 23 feet, or about four feet longer than the Phantom. See if you can wrap your head around it in our extensive high-resolution image gallery below.

Gallery: Rolls-Royce Apparition by Jeremy Westerlund