ROLLS-ROYCE has made some brilliant cars over the years - but the luxury car maker's latest is a bit of a puzzle.

It's so puzzling, in fact, that you could call it the automotive world's equivalent to the fabled Times crossword.

For the company's new Wraith Kryptos Collection - a limited run of just 50 cars for worldwide sale - is a cryptic puzzle of a car with a labyrinthine series of clues and cyphers hidden around the vehicle.

Buyers of the exclusive model, which has been designed and crafted by Rolls-Royce's Bespoke Collective, are being invited to crack the code, the answer to which is known to only two people - the designer and the company's boss.

Designer Katrin Lehmann explained: "The name Kryptos is derived from Ancient Greek, referring to something unseen, hidden and coded, mythical even. Ciphers can be traced through millennia, capturing the imagination of some of the world's most brilliant minds.

"As a designer, I've always been fascinated by the notion that you can communicate messages that are understood by only an elite few, using symbols, pictograms, and ciphers. Finding the key becomes integral to appreciating the full meaning of an item that can otherwise be viewed simply as a work of art."

Cryptic clues are scattered around the car from a special Spirit of Ecstasy figurine on the bonnet via the car's anthracite grey paintjob with green highlights to the interior detailing which includes elements of the cipher embroidered into the headrests.

Rolls-Royce CEO Torsten Müller-Ãtvös has the answer to the puzzle safely locked away in a sealed envelope in a safe in his office at the company's Goodwood HQ. "I look forward to seeing whether any of our clients will crack the code," he says.

Buyers of the Wraith Kryptos will be invited to submit their efforts at solving the code via a members only Rolls-Royce app. Is there a prize for the winner? Rolls-Royce aren't saying, nor is the company revealing the price of the new special edition - that's a secret known only to the world's wealthiest car buyers.