ROLLS-ROYCE GHOST
Latest Ghost gets a new platform, four-wheel steering and fresh looks, and continues to set the luxury saloon bar
THIS IS NOT A DRIVER’S CAR, despite it being the only RollsRoyce saloon designed and engineered ‘for being driven in’ and ‘for driving’, but the new Ghost is the nearest Goodwood’s only car manufacturer gets to building such a thing.
And quite a thing it is too, at over five and a half metres long, more than two metres wide and crushing the scales at 2490kg, although considering some luxury SUVs that last figure doesn’t sound too bad. Well, obviously it is an obscene weight for a car, but considering what goes into constructing a Rolls-Royce Ghost you might expect it to start with a three. I mean, there’s 100kg of sound insulation alone…
This new Ghost is the first ‘post-opulence’ Rolls-Royce – a philosophy matching the requirements of RR customers who have a desire to be less conspicuous and overt… by buying a 5.5-metre long, near 2.5-ton saloon car with a `6.9 crore sticker (base price, exshowroom) and selecting their preferred mix of leather and lambswool. Just when you thought the world couldn’t get any stranger.
The latest Ghost is built on a new modular aluminium architecture allowing for the dimensions to be adapted to suit the vehicle it’s underpinning, from Phantom to Cullinan. And while the strands of BMW DNA are no longer so prevalent in what was Rolls-Royce’s best-selling car (a title the aforementioned SUV is likely to claim sooner rather than later), the 6.75-litre V12, now stamped with a Rolls-Royce part number even though it isn’t cast in the Sussex countryside, still has a Munich twang to it.
From bumper to bumper, this is an all-new design, the detailing less shouty, the shutlines reduced to a bare minimum and none of them wider than a hair’s breadth. But it remains a vast car, with a heft that from some angles gives the impression it’s sinking into the surface beneath.
Its size doesn’t diminish once you’re driving it, either. You sit high behind the wheel and might even find yourself raising the seat a little higher still, so you can at least see the outer edges of the aluminium real estate that makes up the bonnet. Yet despite the cleaner design you still feel as conspicuous as you would sitting in a Caterham, roof down in the rain, trying to blend into a morning commute on London’s M25.
Suspending the new Ghost are air springs and adaptive dampers, the latter pre-set with no options for further configuration by the driver. Not that you ever think twice about it, just as you also don’t think twice about not being able to manually select any of the eight forward gears. Four-wheel steering now joins the four-wheel-drive, but it would be a stretch to suggest it sharpens the car’s agility; rather it makes it more manageable and manoeuvrable. There is also a 12V active anti-roll bar fitted to the multi-link rear axle working with a front
mounted camera to react when a lump, bump or tiresome compression is detected.
All this engineering deserves acknowledgement for resulting in a vehicle that can be driven with all the ease and comfort of any mainstream luxury car but in surroundings that push refinement and luxury to another level. Yes, it feels ridiculously large for our roads when you’re sitting up front (and even larger when you’re in the rear), and in today’s world of cast-iron body control there’s more lean than you’d anticipate, but it doesn’t distract or leave you hanging on. It just feels right, the Ghost remaining consistent and predictable as you guide it with the lightest of touches in blissful isolation from those around you. A Bentley Flying Spur is sharper, more direct and arguably as well appointed, but the car from Crewe lacks the presence and sense of occasion of Goodwood’s newest family member. The Ghost provides an incredibly grand way to arrive, although the journey is unlikely to be filed among your greatest driving memories.
The fitment of a mass damper to the double-wishbone front suspension is intended to minimise shocks over poor surfaces, but it still can’t isolate you from all that mass being worked over beneath you. There’s also a degree more tyre noise than you’d expect when travelling across coarse surfaces, and while wind noise doesn’t penetrate the door and window seals you’re still aware that a car of these proportions will never be truly silent when cutting a hole through the air.
It cuts that hole surprisingly quickly though, as you’d expect of a machine calling upon 850Nm at just 700rpm above its twin-turbo V12’s 900rpm idle speed. And it all operates with an eerie silence accompanied by an automatic transmission delivering shifts as seamless as the powertrain in an electric car. Which begs the question: why isn’t the Ghost electric? If today’s Rolls-Royce customers operate in a postopulence world, surely this should also extend to them driving a post-ICE car? ⌧