Rolls-Royce Ghost Saloon (2020 - ) review

What can we say? The Rolls-Royce Black Badge Ghost is expensive to buy, expensive to fuel, expensive to tax and insure and take into low-emission zones, not to mention expensive to trim and personalise. But that expense propels it into the stratosphere of the truly wealthy, which means in turn it preserves its rarity and symbol of extreme privilege. Rolls-Royce patrons, as the brand refers to them, rarely buy one as their only car, so this section is really an irrelevance. Moving on…

You get a four-year unlimited-mileage warranty with servicing included, which is above average, if you really believe that Rolls-Royce owners are bothered by this sort of thing. We’d expect such admin-based trifles are normally left to staff to take care of. And while the Ghost is no longer simply a rebodied BMW 7 Series with better suspension and noise control, parts are still shared between members of the group so will have been well tried and tested.

The huge bonnet and subframe of the Ghost alone afford the car’s occupants a good degree of safety, alongside four-wheel drive for extra grip on slippery surfaces, and four-wheel steering for more controlled cornering. There are safety systems on board from parent company BMW, including lane-departure and collision-warning systems, active cruise control, night vision and a head-up display as well as the much-needed parking sensors and camera. We would talk about what’s standard and what’s an option but it’s really irrelevant for customers, who won’t be benchmarking this model against another on the basis Rolls-Royce stands on its own.

Every Rolls-Royce is quieter inside than the Bodleian Library and, despite its punk pretensions, the Black Badge Ghost is no exception. You can hear your feet brushing the thick lambswool carpets and your hands slide as they move across the large, skinny-rimmed leather steering wheel. Naturally, there is lots of room for four adults to sit in comfort all day long as the car glides through continents, swapping gears and cresting speed humps without you noticing. The Black Badge emblem, a horizontal ‘Lemniscate’ motif, appears everywhere inside. A mathematical symbol for potential infinity, it was applied to Malcolm Campbell’s record-breaking, Rolls-Royce powered Blue Bird hydroplane and apparently encapsulates the marque’s “unrelenting pursuit of power.” Sustainable materials don’t have a big part to play on the basis most global customers currently seem content with leather and wood, but Rolls-Royce can of course supply pretty much anything via commission.

As you’d expect, the Black Badge Ghost does not shy away from breathtaking features, internally and externally. It begins with the blackened styling cues outside like the smoky, dark Spirit of Ecstasy rising up from the bonnet, the equally dark and imposing Pantheon grille and 21-inch carbon-fibre wheels. Inside, the dashboard on the passenger side lights up to reveal 850 stars in a constellation, picked out by 90,000 laser-etched dots across the surface of the veneer. The touch-screen technology comes courtesy of parent group BMW, so owners from that brand will be familiar with the efficient audio, media, phone and sat-nav set-ups and large rotary dial to control them. They may not, however, be quite so used to seeing this technology in the back of the car, on screens that emerge when picnic tables are unfolded from the backs of the front seats. There’s a beautiful analogue clock on the dash, illuminated at night, and umbrellas in the doors, plus buttons on the inside to close the doors for you if you feel a little tired.

Black Badge takes already powerful Rolls-Royce models and gives them an extra shove, for an edgier drive. The mighty 6.75-litre, V12 petrol engine gets an extra 29 horsepower, to 600 horsepower in total while torque rises to a mighty 900Nm. “Low” mode speeds up gear shifts by 50 per cent, changes the exhaust mode and essentially allows this very heavy, very big car to blast down a straight line in launch mode. We tried it out on a private runway and hit 130mph before we had blinked. Fuel consumption, predictably, can hit single figures without trying too hard, but is supposed to average out at 15.8mpg. Enjoy the ride while you can.