WRAITH PROVES THERE’S NO LIMIT TO EXTRAVAGANCE
This sweet Rolls-Royce coupe makes life on the road as easy as pie, Peter Bleakney writes
My wife Claire and I came to the conclusion the large bulls who gave up their hides for the greater good of this 2016 Rolls-Royce Wraith’s cabin may have lived more pampered lives than ours — albeit shorter.
Raised in the high altitudes of Germany, these free-range bovines never encountered an epidermis-marring fence or tick. They spent their nights indoors and — who knows? — may even have been rubbed down with cocoa butter and lulled to sleep by the gentle strains of a string quartet. It sure feels like it — such is the sumptuous coddling we’re getting in these chairs.
Ah, but that is the way with Rolls-Royce. It is as much about the story as the experience. Our Wraith was hand-polished for eight hours before leaving the factory in Goodwood, England. The Starlight headliner that twinkles the night sky over our noggins has 1,340 stars — each hole hand-drilled and each fibre-optic strand hand-installed, taking three days to make. The Rolls-Royce logos on the wheels are free-spinning and counter balanced, ensuring proper orientation when the vehicle is stopped.
Claire and I are heading from Oakville, Ont., to Bayfield’s Little Inn, a beautifully preserved historic property that opened its doors to travellers in the mid-1800s and now brags of worldclass cuisine. We’re taking all secondary roads, over which the Wraith glides in uncanny silence.
Introduced as a 2014 model, the Wraith is a fastback coupe built on a shortened Ghost platform. Being the most driver-focused Roller in the stable, it features a twin-turbo 6.6-litre V-12 engine with 624 horsepower, 590 pound-feet of torque and a zeroto-100-kilometres-an-hour time of 4.6 seconds. It is the fastest Rolls-Royce ever produced and is proving an unqualified success: 85 per cent of Wraith buyers are new to the brand.
The 2016 Wraith starts at $346,975 in Canada, but of course a base Roller is like a unicorn — you’ll never see one. This specimen has more than $100,000 in upgrades: The bespoke Graphite Silver two-tone paint soaks up $22,625 and the must-have illumination for the Spirit of Ecstasy (also known as the flying lady) hood ornament runs $4,600.
The aforementioned Starlight headliner costs $16,775, but if you’d prefer the constellations to match the night sky when and where you were born — well, thy will be done, as long as thou has enough money.
For us working stiffs this all sounds nutty, but we must remember those shopping in a Rolls-Royce store live in an alternate reality. Their Wraith will be a gift, a reward, decked out to match their yacht’s decor or painted the hue of the mistress’ undergarments. I’ll be waltzing on the moon in a tutu before I have those problems.
The Spirit of Ecstasy proudly points the way as we waft through the lush countryside. This may be Rolls’ most sporting model, but it is still an isolation chamber of the highest order. Road irregularities barely intrude and the featherlight steering is about as communicative as a Panamanian banker.
Should you need to rise above the proletariat, a firm shove on the throttle summons the beast within. You’ll hear a distant roar from under the bonnet, the flying lady tips up a degree or two (and possibly grins), and the Wraith surges ahead on a wave of torque. Acceleration is not overly dramatic, but unrelenting.
We must thank BMW for making this all possible, not least because it supplies the engine, transmission and most of the tech. Rolls-Royce Motor Cars was on life-support at the end of the last century; production was down to about 300 cars a year, technology lagged and quality was in the loo.
In 1998, BMW bought the rights to the Rolls-Royce brand name, logo, Spirit of Ecstasy and grille shape. Essentially starting from scratch, it opened a new facility in Goodwood in 2003, invested in tech, trained new craftsmen and set about resurrecting the brand. The cars are still meticulously hand-built; the only robots are in the paint shop.
We park the Wraith in front of The Little Inn and a small crowd soon gathers. This might be the best part of this gig: sharing the wealth with enthusiastic strangers. The next morning we cruise down to Bayfield’s picturesque waterfront to give harbour master Fred Ramsay an eyeful of British opulence. Then it’s off to nearby Zurich, Ont., to pick up a luxury item I can afford: one of the amazing strawberry rhubarb pies from Rader’s Homestyle Catering. Into the thick, black wool carpet I gingerly place my pie. Does it know the ZF-sourced eight-speed transmission reads the road ahead via GPS and selects its gears with the promise of seamless progress? Or that said lambswool foot mats are part of the $45,600 Wraith package? Hardly. Nonetheless, this pie’s first and last car ride will be a good one.