A car for the post-opulent crowd
NEW ROLLSROYCE GHOST RETAINS THE CHARACTER OF THE ORIGINAL BUT UPS EVERY PART OF THE CAPABILITY TO GOOD EFFECT
WHAT IS IT?
Post-opulent. An unusual way to describe a car that costs £208,000 (8.3 million baht) before you factor in local taxes and on which you’ll have to pay extra for lambswool floor mats, you might think.
But here we are, with Rolls-Royce Ghost take two, the all-new, second generation of a car that made its debut in 2009 and went on to become the most successful Rolls Royce of all time — a record I suspect it will lose to the Cullinan SUV before long.
Last time around, there were large elements of BMW beneath the Ghost. BMW owns Rolls-Royce of course, following a highly amusing caper in which Volkswagen thought it had bought the entirety of Rolls-Royce Bentley in the late 1990s before somebody pointed out that the Rolls-Royce brand didn’t actually belong to the seller.
The particularly good thing about that wheeze is that two decades on, Rolls-Royces and Bentleys do two very distinct things and Rolls Royce has now grown confidently into a brand that can pin each of its models on its own, bespoke platform, without the parent company foundations. The architecture of luxury, they call it.
It’s an all-aluminium structure with some extrusions down its length that makes it relatively simple to produce cars of different lengths, wheelbases, heights and so forth — and move some hardware around to make room for the
Ghost’s tapered rear end. The Cullinan, the Phantom and the Ghost all sit on the platform and replacements for the coupé and convertible likely will too.
In the Ghost, you find effectively a Cullinan powertrain. That means a 6.75-litre V12 with two turbochargers under the bonnet, making 563bhp and, just as importantly, 627lb ft, developed at, more importantly again, 1600rpm — just 600rpm above idle.
It drives all four wheels through an eight-speed automatic gearbox, full oomph basically from when you set off. Rolls-Royce says the unit has a Rolls, not BMW, part number, but, well, put it this way: they don’t cast ‘em in Goodwood. I don’t suppose it really matters.
WHAT’S IT LIKE?
Some people want to be seen, others don’t. There are, I suppose, different types of luxury. And while the full-fat Rolls, the Phantom preferred by the world’s most exuberant high-rollers, is outlandish and extravagant and opulent in the extreme, Ghost buyers are — remember these things are relative — more discreet.
In Rolls terms, discreet means that there’s less obvious stitching on the leather and the Ghost does without the Phantom’s glass-fronted “gallery” on the dashboard. Instead, there’s a rather sweet Ghost nameplate backed with little glowing stars. I promise that looks better than I’ve just made it sound.
Fit and finish is great and materials choice is terrific, too — although I wouldn’t object to analogue rather than digital dials. The metal-air vents ting pleasingly, ambient lighting is artfully done and the short of it is that post-opulent or not, it’s a Rolls-Royce and you’ll find it very comfortable.
This is quite a big car; at 5546mm long and 2148mm wide (including the mirrors), it’s a touch bigger than the old one. Not so differently sized inside though because there’s more insulation in the doors. Unsurprisingly, it’s wide enough and long enough for tall occupants to sit behind other tall occupants.
It’s also very quiet. Fancy things have been tuned acoustically; the boot was a bit boomy, but opening up vent spaces cured that and there’s 100kg of soundproofing in total (the Phantom has 130kg). But the important thing to know is that if you’re sitting in the back seat at motorway speeds, you can have a hushed conversation with the person in the front because the loudest noise otherwise is their hands on the steering wheel. I wouldn’t mind if there were bigger and thinner rims, more Phantom-like, but I’m being pernickety. You have to be.
On the road, there’s a relaxed gait and some low-frequency float to match the quietness but less than you find in the Phantom. The Ghost feels a more tightly screwed car than the bigger Rolls, albeit still comfortably in the realms of luxury. Make a quick lane change and the active rear-steer enables a calm mooch across the carriageway and then ties the rear down quickly, whereas the Phantom or a big SUV would wallow in a little steadying movement.
In terms of engagement, the Ghost steers with lightness and moderate speed but brilliant accuracy and a fingertip weight that barely changes. It’s odd to say it, but I find that as impressive and engaging as the weightier systems of most sports cars. The steering self-centres less strongly than most big cars but if you’re letting the wheel slip between your fingers, remember that you’re making the loudest noise in the cabin. Best to feed it back gently.
Other control weights are also expertly judged. Given the Ghost is “for being driven” as well as “for driving”,
Rolls goes to some lengths to make sure it can be brought to a stop, and will stepoff again, really smoothly.
You can still make pretty quick progress, I should add — and it’s enjoyable to do it. This is a car that has been limited at 249kph, after all, and I don’t imagine that, despite the 2490kg kerb weight and pretty vast frontal area, it would take too long to get there. Ask for a lot of performance and the engine emits a muted, expensive-sounding growl, while the auto box, whose shifts you can’t make yourself, is responsive. Ask for a more Rolls-steady sedate pace and you’ll probably never even notice the Ghost change gear or hear the engine while you do it. This powertrain is awfully but deliciously some of the last of the oldschool, unelectrified, internal-combusted analogue tech, and while vastly consumptive (the 7.57.9kpl / 347-358g/km figures are pretty sobering), ironically this is the closest the internal-combusted car comes to electric driving.
SHOULD I BUY ONE?