I should begin by apologising to you, the reader, first and foremost. Then I should offer a heartfelt sorry to my long-suffering editor. I have let myself down.
Yes, this is an earnest and soul-searching way to open a car review, but you’ll understand my pain when, embarrassed, I inform you that I can tell you very little about the performance and ability of a car I was sent a long way away to drive: the brand-new Rolls-Royce Ghost Series II.
And by the term “very little”, I’m being liberal: I hardly noticed any updated touches, nor did I clock most other elements of the car as I travelled about 300 kilometres through the beautiful Kent countryside in south-east England.
The experience passed quickly and I have absolutely nothing to report further than that the Ghost wafts like it’s flying along in a jet stream, as you would hope for from a Roller. Moreover, it has more presence than Tom Jones, in a stadium, singing at full voice through a 200-decibel sound system.
Its luxury is equal to the second, third and fourth floors of Harrods with Fortnum & Mason on the side. But you expect this of a Rolls-Royce; indeed, you would only notice what it’s missing.
Other than that, there’s very little to report on, apart from the information I’ve been provided with by the Rolls-Royce press department, which will no doubt be incandescent when they read this. To them, I also apologise unreservedly. Sorry.
To rattle off the list of changes for the update, which has come five years after Rolls-Royce announced it would launch an “entry-level” alternative to the sublime and imposing Phantom – at “entry level”, an owner will get little change from £250,000 (Dh1.5 million); it’s just smaller and better to drive yourself than the designed-for-a-chauffeur Phantom.
The radiator grille sits 13 millimetres higher than it did before; the beautifully named “waft line”, which is the crease that runs across the car’s side towards the front wing, has been brought farther forward; the bonnet is bisected by a “wake channel”, apparently to emanate from the Spirit of Ecstasy mascot – who herself has been angled forwards by seven degrees to give passengers a better view of her from behind – to “evoke the sight of a jet’s vapour trail” by all accounts; and the fascia has been modified, panel by panel, to bring changed headlights and brighter LED units with unbroken daytime running lights around the frame.
Inside, the plump front seats are even more comfortable than they used to be, which is saying something, and the rear seats have been angled slightly towards each other to “augment effortless communication with fellow passengers”, to borrow Rolls-Royce’s description. It’s strange that Rolls-Royce doesn’t provide antimacassars for pomade protection, but maybe that will come sometime soon.
I’m told on good authority that the instrument dials now feature individually applied polished metal chaplets to “evoke the precision design of handmade luxury wrist watches, whilst the matte chrome centres ‘float’ in the middle of each instrument”. I must confess I had to look up chaplets, to find they are “metal supports for the core of a hollow casting mould”. That’s good to know.
There are more changes, and I will go into these shortly, but from this you can tell that the Series II Ghost could hardly be described as either groundbreaking or built from the ground up, as so many second-generation car models will claim. What’s different is more about refinement than any great innovation.
I wouldn’t suggest for a minute that I was hoping for more. The original Ghost had its flaws, but these were more issues for the #OnePercent than any real #FirstWorldProblems.
Things like the sheer weight of a 2,470-kilogram car on run-flat tyres, which in fairness are a lot better than they used to be; issues like optional 21-inch wheels, which look quite fantastic but make a din when they hit a deep pothole – like that really matters anyway; and other matters like the cost, which compares unfavourably to the S-Class, which is infinitely more reasonably priced and easier to drive, though its silver arrow cannot hold a candle to the double Rs of the Ghost.
You’ll buy a Rolls-Royce because you have a thing for the Flying Lady, for inch-thick lamb’s wool rugs and for mirrors at your temples in the rear, just behind the suicide doors; because you love the naked aluminium on the bonnet to contrast with whatever colour shade of bodywork you could conceive without limit; or because only Rolls-Royce would ever consider offering you every interior material from ostrich hide to rabbit pelt or crocodile skin. You’re a Taurus? You can even have your star sign’s astrology constellation marked out, like the night-time sky, in the roof lining courtesy of hundreds of LEDs and a spot of stitching.
You just aren’t bothered with rev counters, though you’re transfixed by the power-reserve gauge; you’re perfectly capable of closing the doors by yourself, but the lure of the power door button is too much. The pull of the RR motif is too much as well. You want nothing but the best and can afford it.
And this is what I was getting at with all my earlier apologies: the Ghost Series II drives, looks and behaves exactly as you would expect it to, with the utmost dignity, decorum and debonair distinction. You want to hoon it? In a split second and through a thorough kick on the gas, the Spirit of Ecstasy raises her wings to the sky and you shoot forward as if you were giving her chase.
You want to leave some rubber behind? The Ghost can be quite entertaining – not least with its five-second acceleration from rest to 100kph, provided by 780Nm of torque at a lowly 1,500rpm and 570hp from the BMW 7 Series-related, 6.6L, twin-turbo V12 unit that drives an eight-speed ZF gearbox under what looks like a half-mile of bonnet (though please don’t mention BMW whatever you do; this is Rolls-Royce, the guys in Bavaria will chide).
The Ghost II upgrade has brought with it the well-received Satellite Aided Transmission (SAT) that made its debut last year on the Wraith. The beauty of this technology is that when it works well, you just won’t know about it – something that is typically Rolls-Royce.
What it does is use GPS data – with a Ghost, you get four years of Sim card data pre-installed by the manufacturer to drive your maps and local Wi-Fi – to allow the car to “see” what’s happening next. For example, if the satnav guides you into a couple of left-right turns, the SAT will hold the gear without changing down, based on location and your driving style. It might be imperceptible, but that’s the whole point of it.
High speeds and dramatic music always work well together, even if you’re more into Julio Iglesias than Judas Priest, and one thing I noticed with every cell in my being was the tremendous new sound system that started was nothing short of terrifying but, as it melted the wax out of my ears, came a close second to a stage performance in the midst of a seriously rocking band.
Eighteen – that’s one-eight – speakers are assembled everywhere from the dash to the boot, to create a wall of sound worthy of Phil Spector’s work, more than the currently incarcerated producer possibly could have done back in his 1960s heyday.
Also inside is a much-updated 10.25-inch, high-definition infotainment screen that spreads the width of the centre console, which is essentially a Rolls-Royce refit of BMW’s iDrive system. Much maligned over years, the software is now pretty much the industry standard. What’s more, the Flying Lady now appears in glass on top of a rotary controller that allows you to write what you want on its touchpad, to bring up names, addresses and phone numbers on the digital screen.
The more I think about it, the more Rolls-Royce has once again created something that Charles and Henry would have been rather pleased with – it’s no secret that what the pair prized more than anything was the creation of a vehicle that worked sublimely beyond anything else that was or even is available.
Again, the company has baked this so deeply into its product that you just don’t notice your surroundings the way you would in a Mondeo or a Pajero. You are wowed by the Roller’s imposing shell; you sense its larger-than-life frame; feel an interior that’s softer than chamois underpants; and suck in the luxury that is available to very few. That’s what you notice.
That’s what a Rolls-Royce is all about: not how it corners (very well, in spite of the weight), how it steers (it has a little more contact than before, especially if you opt for the new Dynamic Driving Package, with redesigned struts, new steering and adjusted dampers) or how it feels (once again, it wafts); but how it makes you feel as one of the very few people on Earth who have the means and the variable taste to opt for one of the world’s most expensive cars.
A Roller could never be value for money – on paper, it couldn’t even be justifiable – but there’s nothing else on Earth that makes you feel the way you do inside one.
I’m sorry I didn’t notice much about the car itself, but I couldn’t help but observe how it made me feel inside. You don’t need to know about its dynamics; just understand that this is a stunning car made even better.
The Rolls-Royce Ghost Series II is available to order now in the UAE, with prices still to be confirmed.
