Want to intimidate everyone on the road? Go buy yourself one of the following cars. A R olls-Royce Phantom, Koenigsegg CCX, or maybe even a jumbo Dodge Ram pick up with all the fittings and trimmings, and make sure you flash your high beams as often as possible at them.
Unfortunately, that is my opinion when it comes to these cars, and others, which are too numerous to mention in this article. The Rolls-Royce Phantom, for all it’s class, beautiful fit and finish, second to none interior and regal looks is to my taste just over the top in terms of its size and the way in which it makes you feel that it really wants you to get out of the way..quickly.
On the other hand, the new Rolls-Royce Ghost, launched just a few weeks ago at the Frankfurt Motor Show, gets it just right. It’s significantly smaller, yet similar in its overall shape and look to the Phantom yet has a much classier, more elegant and more modern look to it. Based on the platform of the new BMW 7-series, it is nonetheless quite a bit larger than the 7-series with an overall length of 5.4 meters and a wheelbase of 3.29 meters, not to mention quite heavy at 2,469kg but nowhere near the yacht-like proportions of the Phantom. None of this should be too much of a problem though for the 6.6-liter turbocharged V-12 sitting under the long, elegant bonnet, pumping out 563 hp and 575 lb-ft of torque via the ZF eight-speed automatic transmission which accelerates the Ghost from 0-100 km/h in just 4.8 seconds, putting most sports cars out there to shame. I know I won’t be trying any traffic light burnouts with any of these cars any time soon!
Despite the size, Rolls-Royce promises that this will be the most driver-oriented and modern of all the road-cars it has ever produced, using an array of driver aids including night vision, lane-departure warning, an adaptive air suspension with variable damping, anti-roll stabilization and virtually every other driving aid you can imagine. On the inside, the old-school built-in umbrella’s in the coach doors (also known as suicide doors), go hand in hand with all the modern amenities you can want such as LCD displays in the backs of the headrests, a 12.5gb hard drive, USB connection for your MP3 music player and an astounding 16 speaker sound system which will surely make your favourite CD sound superb, be it Verdi or the Verve.
The Ghost is in my opinion the perfect luxury car, providing you with much more exclusivity and panache than a 7-series or Mercedes S-Class, yet managing to stay under the radar in terms of its classiness rather than its larger sibling’s outright, in your face inane dimensions. The folks at Bentley should definitely be quite worried for their Flying Spur with the Ghost sure to give it a nice big dent in its sales figures. Rumor has it that Rolls-Royce is even planning a coupe and drop-top versions of the Ghost. We can’t wait to see them!
As for the price of the new Rolls-Royce? Initial estimates are that it will retail somewhere in the neighborhood of $250,000. Not as much as its larger sibling, but still far more than a 7-series. |