The Rolls-Royce Ghost Black Badge: an excellent choice, sir
At the end of a weekend in a Rolls-Royce Ghost Black Badge — as falls from greatness go — I can now almost sympathise with Prince Andrew.
The problem with spending time in a properly decadent hotel room is that the desire to stay can be so great that you ponder barricading yourself inside, or building a fort out of room-service trays. For at least the past 18 hours, you have lived a better life, buffeted yourself (pronounced buff-aid, it’s the opposite of getting buff and involves giant breakfasts) and been feted with the kind of obsequiousness that the royals take for granted.
But then you have to walk out into the suffering heat of reality, and it can really sting. Unless you climb into a Rolls-Royce, that is.
After a weekend in a very suite room at the skyline-slicing Crown Towers in Sydney, my family and I sashayed across the forecourt to our waiting Rolls-Royce Ghost Black Badge and, slipping off our Crown slippers, buried our feet in the deep goodness of its lambswool floors. Considering the level of louche we’d been lolling in, during a stay arranged so that I could, perhaps, understand a little more of what life is like for someone who is willing to drop $1 million on a car, it should have been impossible to feel any more spoiled. And yet there’s something about just being in a car like the Ghost, let alone driving one, that makes you happy, and forces your face into the kind of foppish grin that Hugh Grant made famous.
For my children – and the dozen other kids I somehow ended up allowing to climb in and squeal delightedly in the back seats – it’s the laptop tables and TV screens, the champagne fridge and goblets between the seats, the buttons they can press to open and shut the vast and unwieldy coach doors, the optic-fibre stars sewn into the ceiling, and the umbrellas hidden in the doors.
For me, I have to admit, it was the staggering stereo system, which made every drive a journey of sonic discovery (I kid you not, there were whispers and brass sounds in Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk that I’d never heard before) and ear-shivering joy. While most car companies hire the world’s best stereo makers – Bang & Olufsen, Mark Levinson, Bower & Wilkins – to fit out their vehicles, Rolls-Royce uses its own Bespoke Audio and sets out to put what feels like a recording studio inside its already surreally silent cabins.
Rolls-Royce says sound was a consideration in the Ghost’s design from day one, and that the whole chassis – including the use of materials such as aluminium, which has a different acoustic resonance to steel – is designed around the Bespoke Audio concept. No one else does that, because it would be insane, and crazily expensive, but that’s the level of decadent detail you get with a Rolls, and I must admit that I found it impossible to take a trip in the Ghost without arriving feeling alive with the sound of music. (I might also have been feeling happier because I usually listen to podcasts about politics as I drive, but that just felt like a waste of the speakers.)
The Black Badge appellation means this particular vehicle is, and I really can’t say this better, “the most potent manifestation of Rolls-Royce yet – a drive defined by unrelenting force and finesse”. Apparently this version has more engaging gear ratios than a standard Ghost, but I don’t believe it has a gearbox at all. The acceleration is simply seamless – you are in one place, and then you are in another, and trying to explain to someone why there’s blood trickling out your ears.
There are plenty of other clever Black touches to make this Rolls feel even more special, my favourite of which would be the unique carbon-alloy-composite wheels, which really look amazing close up.
Normally, I would be very excited about a twin-turbocharged 6.75-litre V12, particularly one that’s been tweaked to make 21kW and 50Nm more than in the standard Ghost, for a total of 441kW and 900Nm. The Black Badge would seem, then, to be aimed at speedy enthusiasts, and indeed Rolls says it is “made for those who dare”, and bought by “younger” customers, albeit those already successful enough to spend at least $745,000 on a car (a few options took ours to a more realistic $1,030,000). But the fact is that using a V12 to send 2.5 tonnes of luxury to 100km/h in just 4.7 seconds somehow manages to feel merely appropriate, rather than daring. It is, like everything about the Ghost, effortless. Whatever sir desires, sir shall have, and that even includes a Pelvic Activation seat massage.
The cruel end to this visit to fantasyland came, of course, when I had to hand back the key to the Black Badge before switching into a Toyota Corolla.
As falls from greatness go, I think I can now almost sympathise with Prince Andrew.
Rolls-Royce Ghost Black Badge
ENGINE: 6.75-litre twin turbo V12 (441kW/900Nm). Average fuel 15.8 litres per 100km
TRANSMISSION: 8-speed automatic, all-wheel drive
PRICE: $745,000
STARS: 4.5 out of 5
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