Sunny California, with it’s fun-loving, elegant lifestyle… one could hardly think of a more suitable location to acquaint oneself with the new Rolls-Royce Ghost, a car aimed unashamedly at the rich and famous. Pelican Hill, a sumptuous resort was the base chosen for the unveiling of the new “compact” from the stable that created the Phantom.
All around, the names have the ring of jet-set style: Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Dana Beach, and Corona del Mar. And Crystal Cove, a natural gem where I’m told South-Sea Island movies of the ’30s were filmed. This was to be my playground for an idyllic couple of days as I got to know the car that’s set to spread the RR name to a wider world. Only slightly wider, mind, given that the Goodwood factory will only be producing between 1 500 and 2 000 a year…
Classically elegant… on our first meeting the new Ghost glistened under the lights at 7 Degrees, a trendy gallery in downtown Laguna, its silver-painted bonnet shimmering in the neon glow. Particularly elegant is the way the radiator has been integrated into the nose to comply with the latest pedestrian safety regulations, following the style already set by the Phantom Drophead and Drophead Coupe. But was it a real Royce, I asked myself as director of global communications Richard Carter flung open the display car’s coach doors, which follow the configuration initiated with the Phantom?
All the talk of BMW 7 Series underpinnings that has preceded the arrival of RR4 has probably done the car no favours… but a first careful look immediately dispels the doubts. Despite the US price-tag of “only” $250 000 dollars, this is a Rolls-Royce through and through. From outside, its “yacht-line” styling, penned under chief designer Ian Cameron, immediately associates it with its pricier siblings.
And inside, interior designer Alan Sheppard has made sure it has all the beautifully crafted chrome, wood and leather that one has come to expect. And the space… thanks to the steel monocoque construction, which is more space-efficient than the extruded aluminium space frame employed in the Phantom, the Ghost is not much less roomy than its big sister, despite being 400 mm shorter.
But, as I was to find out in a ride and drive session around the Pacific Coast area south of Los Angeles, this is a Royce that is superbly comfortable to be chauffeured in, but great fun to drive as well. That’s exactly what engineering director Helmut Riedl and his team set out to do: create a car that responds precisely and quickly to driver input, yet provides the kind of cosseting demanded by RR customers.
This has been achieved by using an intelligent four-cornered air suspension system and electronic variable damping to deliver the best of all worlds. And of course there’s the bespoke 6,6-litre twin-turbo V12 engine designed by Munich’s engineers specifically for the Ghost: 420 kW, 780 N.m (at 1 500 r/min), providing sportscar performance: 0-100 km/h in 4,7 sec, top speed of 250 km/h.. .
Of course, you can’t use all of that on Californian roads, as California Highway Patrol officer MG Bell, keeping a watchful eye on the Ghosts leaving Pelican Hill, underlined when he gave a couple of us a demonstration of how he calibrated the radar fitted to his Ford Crown Victoria with a couple of pitch forks: ping… 40 mph, pi-i-i-n-g… 25 mph! But Rolls-Royce had thought of everything, a session on a track laid out on an airfield near Irvine providing the opportunity to try out the uncanny combination of straight-line limo ride and grippy cornering achieved by Herr Riedl and his team.
For a full analysis, see a report in the April issue of CAR.
