Car: Rolls-Royce Phantom
Prices: £269,500-£317,250 – on the road
Insurance Group: 20
Emissions: 377-380g/km
Performance: [saloon] 0-60mph 5.7s / Max Speed 149mph
Fuel Consumption: [saloon] (urban) 12.2mpg / (extra urban) 25mpg / (combined) 18mpg
Dimensions: length/width/heightmm 5834/1990/1632
GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE?
Our Rating: 7.9 / 10
The First Rolls-Royce Since BMW Took Custodianship Is Quite An Achievement. By Andy Enright
What is a Rolls-Royce? Stop for a moment and think about it. What does the brand represent? What does it mean nowadays? These were questions that needed to be answered by senior executives at BMW when designing the iconic luxury car. It looks like they may well have formulated some convincing answers to those quandaries in the imposing form of the Phantom, the first all-new Rolls-Royce for years.
Certain traditions have gone by the wayside. The arcane cottage industry that was the factory at Pyms Lane, Crewe was replaced a few years ago by a gleaming facility at Goodwood. The bodywork is fabricated at BMW’s specialist plant at Dingolfing in Germany, with aluminium panels draped over an aluminium spaceframe. The composite front wings and steel bootlid are the only non-aluminium metalwork. The engines are also shipped over from Germany. Their 6.75-litre capacity is a match for the old V8 units, but these are modern V12 engines all direct injection, variable valves and 453bhp without recourse to anything as vulgar as a turbocharger.
The big challenge was to make a car that conspicuously wasn’t a supersized BMW 7 Series. As such, the Phantom doesn’t use any existing BMW floorpan, suspension parts or cabin parts. What’s more, the key personnel charged with creating the Phantom weren’t drawn from the cream of BMW’s rank and file. Head designer Ian Cameron was best known for his work on the current Range Rover and was very aware that Rolls Royces mustn’t be seen to be emanating from such a common source as BMW or, as he rather elegantly puts it, "You don’t make wine in a brewery." Chief engineer Tim Leverton had also worked on the Range Rover and the Phantom was designed and modelled in London – at a converted bank opposite Hyde Park that used to be Johnny Depp’s UK apartment.
It really is the most mind-boggling undertaking. An estimated 1,000 cars roll out of the £65m Goodwood plant each year, which at a quarter of a million pounds apiece bring in £250m. The factory itself is an astonishing facility, designed by Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, architect of the Eden Project in Cornwall. The floor has been sunk 5 feet below ground level and the roof has been landscaped over with grass, leading some commentators to envision a sort of subterranean Blofeld’s lair and there is something a little sinister about the silence, the immaculate employees identically dressed in pleated corduroy and tweeds, German vowel sounds occasionally ringing down the line. There’s no paint shop, instead there’s a Surface Technology Centre.
Prices start at £269,500 for the standard saloon or coupe, £317,250 for the long wheelbase saloon version or £314,600 for the Drophead Coupe. At 5.84 metres long and 1.99 metres wide in standard wheelbase form, there’s a lot to cover. The key design features are the hawkish front lights, the huge wheels and the unusual back-hinged rear pair of doors. Each car uses 18 hides for its 450 separate pieces of leather. Each of the 60 pieces of veneer is 40 layers thick, glued onto aluminium and finished by hand – 2400 slivers of timber in every car. Two door-mounted umbrellas are finished in Teflon so as not to rot if you store them wet. The top of the tyres is 31 inches high, designed to replicate early sketches that indicated the ideal proportion between wheel size and cabin height.
The Phantom is a very tall car, its overall height disguised by such styling sleight of hand. The proportions work well. At no point does this car ever have that coarse stretch limo look that the Mercedes designers who penned the Maybach – the Phantom’s only current conceivable rival – have failed to avoid. The interior, while traditional at first glance, hides a number of modern refinements behind its luxuriant marquetry. There are 31 switches evident and it’