ROAD TRIP TO NEW ENGLAND
Wheels’ own Peter Bleakney drives not one, but four Rolls-Royces while Out East,
NEWPORT, R. I.— Forget the one per cent. This is point-zero-zero-one per cent, I concluded as the 2016 Rolls-Royce Phantom I had been piloting from New York City floated over the cobblestones and came to rest in front of the Vanderbilt Grace Hotel in Newport, R.I.
Granted, I didn’t drive it the whole distance. Partway through the journey I retired to the rear quarters of this massive slice of bespoke opulence to grab a nap, which in reality is where most owners of the Phantom Extended Wheelbase will be spending their travel time.
The leather is as creamy as British high tea and, were it not for the thickness of the wool carpeting, you could enjoy a pretty decent game of croquet on the expanse of floor space.
The Phantom is not a driver’s car in the classic sense, but it surely delivers an experience that plays into every expectation of what captaining a tradi- tional Roller should be. The naturally aspirated 453 hp, 531 lb.-ft., 6.75L V12 is your strong and silent partner. Throttle travel is long and linear — no jackrabbit starts, sir. The huge steering wheel has a pencil thin rim that everso politely suggests we’re driving this leviathan with a delicate touch.
Yet, should you find the need to blast past the proletariat, a firm shove on the throttle has the wonderfully anachronistic Power Reserve needle diving to the left and the Phantom lunging forward, leaving the great unwashed in its silent wake.
The Rolls-Royce story for this trip does not end here. There are three other cars to sample: a Phantom Drophead Coupe, a Ghost II and the allconquering two-door fastback Wraith, which with its 624 hp twin-turbo 6.6L V12 is the fastest Roller every produced. So I’m presented with the rare opportunity to sample pretty much all the marque’s products back to back.
If you have to ask (and of course you do), the as-tested price of these testers with their numerous bespoke upgrades are as follows: Phantom EWB $549,950 (U.S.), Phantom Drophead
Coupe $532,250, Ghost $410,025, Wraith $377,475.
Rolls-Royce recently teamed up with Grace Hotels, a family-owned concern that operates a small number of very exclusive resorts worldwide that are largely based on historical properties.
The Vanderbilt Grace in Newport certainly falls in line. The house . . . er, mansion was built by Alfred Vanderbilt in 1909 for his mistress, the wife of a Cuban ambassador. Alfred’s luck ran out at sea. Indeed, he cancelled his reservation on the Titanic at the last minute, but later booked passage on the Lusitania, which was sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland in 1915.
By 1998, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars was also essentially dead in the water. Had it not been for BMW buying the storied brand and rebuilding it with the firm understanding of what makes a Rolls a Rolls (with the help of some solid German engineering), I would not be swapping out the EWB for the Phantom Drophead Coupe, the second car developed under BMW’s stewardship.
Rolls-Royce sells less than 100 of the massive convertibles per year worldwide, so it is indeed a rare sight. And perfect for motoring though Newport, past the historic Tennis Hall of Fame and on to the Breakers, a 70-room mansion built between 1893 and 1895 as the summer home for Cornelius Vanderbilt II.
Having made his fortune in transportation, Cornelius would have surely appreciated our posse of RollsRoyces.
Day 2 had us driving up the Eastern Seaboard to Kennebunkport, Maine, and on this journey I sampled the newer-generation cars — the 12-cylinder turbocharged four-door Ghost and two-door Wraith, which are smaller, less expensive (both relative descriptors) and based on BMW 7-Series architecture.
Compared with the huge Phantom, these tidier rides feel more like real cars — less nautical and considerably more responsive. Yet the detail and workmanship is nothing less that obsessive.
Gliding along in the Ghost was a joy and a clinic in effortless progress. The 563-hp V12 is hooked to an 8-speed ZF auto that reads the upcoming road topography via GPS and insures the correct gear is selected for your most unruffled progress.
And on to the fastback Wraith. At a mere $377,475 as tested, this may have been the least expensive car here but, with 624 horsepower and a bespoke St. James Red paint job ($9,925, thank you), it was the bad boy of the group. And a true stunner. This is R-R’s driver’s car, and it certainly was my fave — all black interior with red piping and the night sky twinkling overhead thanks to the $5,900 Starlight Headliner.
Our convoy of Rollers convened at the White Barn Inn in Kennebunkport, another historical Grace property that caters to those who cotton to the finer things in life.
I’d wager ours were not the first Rolls-Royces to, er, grace this destination. Peter Bleakney is a regular contributor to Toronto Star Wheels. Travel was provided by the manufacturer. To reach him, email wheels@thestar.ca and put his name in the subject line.