Inside Range Rover Bespoke and the art of creating a one-of-one car

From 24-carat gold-plated detailing to interiors inspired by Scotland’s River Tay, Range Rover is taking personalisation beyond colour and materials. Belle Rice explores how its Bespoke service translates owners’ memories, heritage and experiences into one-of-a-kind cars, as showcased by the Traces exhibition at Milan Design Week.

The etymology of the word bespoke has its roots in Old English, with “bespeak” originally meaning “to speak about or request something”. The word evolved through the Renaissance to mean ordering specific goods in advance. By 1755, it was recorded as a way  to describe custom-made suits, but fast forward to 2026, and anyone familiar with the upper echelons of luxury will know it’s now frequently used to sell anything from a monogrammable tote bag to digital printing on products, often with a flagrant disregard for the original idea of something truly special made to order.

It’s fitting, then, that Range Rover, a car marque known for speeding head first into the future in both design and automotive engineering, and a luxury SUV pioneer, is bringing the word’s origin full circle with its bespoke service, reaffirming its commitment to the origins and ideas of craftsmanship with the most 21st century line of cars.

Introduced originally for the Range Rover in 2023, and then extended to the Range Rover Sport in 2025, the brand reached a new milestone this spring, on a hot, bright day at Milan Design Week. Range Rover showcased exactly what the bespoke team can do with Traces, an exhibition featuring a Range Rover model named Pearl of Tay at its forefront. 

It was an exploration of  how the marque can work with clients to develop a one-of-a-kind car to reflect a special moment in their life, a favourite place or a nod to their heritage. It also served to showcase Range Rover’s dedication to craft and design from  the inside out.

Conceived with the spatial design studio Storey Studio and situated in an ethereal, futuristic gallery space designed as a landscape, guests experienced visual installations showcasing the brand’s interpretative skills, translating memories and experiences into a material project. 

Taking inspiration from the pearls historically found in the Scottish river, the pearlescent car was surrounded by cabinets of objets, including flax-gathered cloth, kilt pins and a heather cassie basket, each sourced or inspired from the banks of the River Tay in the Highlands by Bard, the Edinburgh-based craft gallery.

The vehicle’s interiors symbolise these its through colour palettes and textiles. The embroidered curves on the seats reflect the pearl’s shape as well as the river’s flowing waters. The stitchwork on the pearl motifs is carefully crafted, with threads overlaying one another in a long, arduous process that adds another tier of luxury to the design. 

The Range Rover lettering on the front exterior is 24k gold-plated, and  the wheel caps subtly feature the brand motif at the centre; all of which serve to elevate the vehicle as “the most personal expression of luxury”.

Martin Limpert, Range Rover’s global managing director, was on hand in Milan to explain how his team will work with each client on an individual basis to develop ideas from their life stories, heritage, experiences and design preferences to create their very own one-of-one car. The inspiration “can come from anywhere – be it moments from their childhood or places that they have experienced. All of our paints are named after a certain location in the world,” he says. 

“The materials we use often come out of that region. The colours, the stitching, it’s all about the details underneath it. Traces is where we bring this idea to life. This is where we celebrate craftsmanship, leadership, design obsession, capabilities, but most importantly, storytelling.”

And it’s storytelling that is the overarching theme here, with the marque deliberately shifting away from the idea of creating bespoke cars based simply on a colour and fabric preference. Instead, as Will Verity, Range Rover’s brand design chief explains, the team try to work with the client to dive deeper into the psyche to find out “why you are drawn to a creative decision, why you select a certain colour, why you select a certain material. 

For us, it was often the case that this was influenced by your lived experience, your memories, the journey that you have been through as an individual affects your creative choices. It was really a moment to explore how memories can influence creative decisions and showcasing that through the lens of Range Rover Bespoke.”

And for a client who wishes to align the design of his bespoke car to his boat, perhaps? The Range Rover team is fully on board. Marcus Blake, head of bespoke and specialist sales, is adept at developing colour palettes and finishes that, should the client wish, can then be used elsewhere in their lives. Conversely, a previous client wanted to match his new car with his private jets, so the team worked extensively with the aviation manufacturer to translate the unique colourway developed for the jets’ exteriors into an automotive paint that could be used on his one-of-a-kind vehicle.

With a team this dedicated to distilling a part of their client’s core personality into each bespoke model, it’s no wonder that their unmatched levels of service alongside an authentic commitment to true craftsmanship has Range Rover leaving its competitors in the dust.

First published in the October 2026 issue of BOAT International. Get this magazine sent straight to your door, or subscribe and never miss an issue.