All Entries Tagged With: "rolls royce ghost"
Design Study: 2012 Rolls-Royce Ghost EWB
Strength: Added length creates sleeker profile. Weakness: the small double moonroof.
Rolls Ghost In Luscious Claret
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img via eBay ::: 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost
JUDGING from a brief tour behind the helm of one Ghost back in 2010, I found myself to be a fan. It’s a posh, plush, thoroughly modern chariot. That having been said, I’m not sure that I’m thrice the fan of the Ghost than I am the F01 generation BMW 750Li. But a lot can change in a year. Namely the price…
Room To Grow: Rolls-Royce Expands With Ghost EWB
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img Rolls-Royce Motor Cars ::: Ghost Extended Wheelbase
FIRST, an observation from the Rolls-Royce press office:
It has taken Rolls-Royce Motor Cars just seven years to achieve record sales of 2,711 cars in 2010 since Phantom was first launched in 2003. It took Rolls-Royce Motors, the previous company, more than 70 years to achieve the same figure in a single year.
Perceptions: Rolls-Royce Is A “Male Brand”
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img Rolls-Royce ::: Consumer Perceptions on Rolls-Royce
WHEN in 2008 Rolls-Royce announced it had sold its three-thousandth Phantom, BMW’s super-marque released pictures of RR’s chairman alongside a female customer in her new bespoke Phantom. According to a recent BBC report, this feminine client may have accounted for the .1% of women who buy Phantoms.
Preview: 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img Jacqueline Borchardt for ADLX ::: 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost @ Miller Motorcars
ON foot, we’re weaving our way through a parking lot full of Bentleys and Aston Martins.
We brush past the new Mulsanne which sits – gape mouthed – like some Basking Shark ready to swallow people, cars, buses, and ancient hemlocks whole.
Speaking of trees, a veritable forest was felled and fitted to the consoles and inside-door-panels of every chariot on this lot. It’s a woody, chrome-plated, and hide-bound environ.
And it is wonderful.
This is Miller Motorcars in Greenwich, Connecticut. Our salesman greets us with firm shakes of hand. He’s young, sharp dressed and attitude-free. He says he watches Top Gear and telegraphs a love for cars.
As we proceed, there’s just one snag. Company regulations forbid him from having his name or his picture published. This is a shame as we soon discover that he’s excellent at his job. Surely excellence is worth publishing?
We find the 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost in “Darkest Tungsten” over “Moccasin”. It’s lovely, if understated for a contemporary Rolls.
I comment that the greeting scent reminds me of BMW.
“But it’s not BMW leather,” our salesman assures us.
We hear the familiar BMW chime BLOOM-BLOOM-BLOOM as he says this. For the record, the Ghost uses the BMW 7-Series platform but only shares 20% of its parts with its Bavarian cousin. Rolls-Royce seems at pains to emphasize this fact.
The sales rep. opens the rear door for Jacqueline, who sits behind me armed with a camera.
“The coach doors open to 83 degrees, which is wider than Phantom,” he notes, closing the door. He adds that, “cabin space is similar to Phantom thanks to steel body construction instead of aluminum. It takes a lot more aluminum to achieve the same rigidity as steel.” More aluminum beams mean less occupant space.
Spatially, the two Royces offer similarly cavernous interiors – this despite the Ghost’s more, err, modest dimensions. The Ghost is more than a foot shorter than the Phantom (212.6″ vs. 229.6″) but larger than anything this side of Grandpa’s Town Car.
I pilot the Ghost through town and then onto 95 towards Stamford. We progress in marvelous serenity.
Larger egos may need to stick with the Phantom, though, as the new sedan blends disconcertingly with traffic. Surely a car of this wattage should announce itself in bolder tones? Still, the Ghost’s form and function leaves you feeling empowered as you gaze past the long bonnet towards the Spirit of Ecstasy which stands proud like a trophy.
You note that steering response is sharper. Throttle response, quicker. Combine the two and you understand how the Ghost is – in Rolls terms – a driver’s car. A driver’s car, even if the experience seems dampened through rolls of vicuña. Still, our ride’s a little bumpy by Rolls standards; bumps keep vibrating through to the front seats.
I ask if the 19″ rims are the culprit. Not likely, Mr. Salesman says. He’s experienced more or less the same ride in other Ghosts.
That aside, splendid isolation is the name of the game. That is until the remote exhaust note rumbles in the distance like angry hounds when your right foot finds the floor. At that point, you discover a new appeal to the most powerful Rolls-Royce yet – a 563 horsepower V12 that makes 575 lb-ft of torque at just (!) 1500 rpm.
With all this torque and very little drama, you simply bolt football fields ahead.
So, how many Ghosts will Rolls make?
“Rolls-Royce expects to sell 2,500 Ghosts this year. [Miller's] sold three and has orders for two,” he says.
Even if Ghost commissions eat into Phantom sales, this figure will almost triple Goodwood’s annual volume which positions Rolls-Royce in better competition with Bentley and on a surer trajectory for the road ahead.
Jacqueline takes her turn behind the wheel and pilots us back to Miller. She comments on how manageable the car feels and marvels how every control operates smoothly. Reposing from an electrically reclined backseat, I agree.
Which leads me to summarize that on first impression, the Ghost is an engaging, opulent, and eminently capable new Rolls-Royce. And quite distinct from BMW, too.
Ed. note: Special thanks to Miller Motorcars.
Rolls Royce 2011 Ghost
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img Rolls-Royce Motor Cars / imcdb.org ::: 2011 Rolls-Royce Ghost
ROLLS-ROYCE is making marvelous headway with the attractive new Ghost.
It’s a brand new model that’s set to increase production volume, pit wits with Bentley, and play to a broader clientele. The Ghost also shares more in common with BMW than any previous Roller.
Based on the F02 generation long-wheelbase 7-Series (but nearly twice the price @ $245K) Goodwood insists that its new headlining model shares only 20% of its components with the big Bimmer. Almost 100% of this 20% are functioning bits which are tucked away, working with Teutonic efficiency behind the scenes.
The Ghost’s body is assembled at the same factory in Dingolfing that builds BMW’s flagship sedan. And like the Goodwood built Phantom, the Ghost drafts a BMW V12 into service, but only after it’s gone through several rounds of steroid injections and then gagged with silencing engineering to keep all that bruit down to smallest of decibels.
Still, it’s nothing new for a Rolls-Royce (or indeed rival Bentley) to share components with “lesser” marques.
During the Crewe years, GM provided transmissions and electronic systems. The first generation Silver Cloud, for example, shared the same hard shifting 4-speed autobox that the General first used in 1930′s Oldsmobiles.
Recently, the omnipresent and ever snarky Dan Neil wrote for the Wall Street Journal that driving the BMW 7-Series back-to-back with the Ghost could give the driver an acute sense of déja vu. That said, Mr. Neil seemed to appreciate the Roller’s charms more than its Bavarian twin.
“Everything good that the Bimmer is, the Rolls Ghost is that, amplified and anglicized exponentially—quieter, smoother, more luxurious and veddy, veddy powerful,” he wrote.
When your correspondent ventured to the Ghost’s premiere in New York last spring, I couldn’t help but feel the same way just from sitting in the car and feeling about lustily as I did. Still, it was only a brief taste so, it’s hard to tell just how British this Teutonic Ghost really manages to be.
On YouTube: Curbside With The Rolls-Royce Ghost
By Gunnar Heinrich | YouTube
IT’S challenging to really know how a car will look “on-the-street” without, well, on-the-street shots or seeing it first in the flesh. In it’s unaltered conceptual form, yours has seen the Ghost in the confines of the IAC center in New York.
Not curbside.
And sure, we’ve all had a good gander at the Rolls-Royce Ghost, in all it’s silken splendor through the super polished lenses of paid-for videography and photography, but not nearly enough in terms of real-world takes on Rolls’ latest chariot sans test-mule cladding.
Well thanks to this video-picture montage of a Rolls-Royce Ghost (replete with glum looking driver) in London, we can now say that we have a better idea of how the car looks from the bystander’s P.O.V.
Quick verdict: in external grace, Ian Cameron’s Ghost has carried forward the best aspects of the Phantom while softening some of the edges. In presence, I’d say the W221 Mercedes-Benz S-Class (0:17) is now a true rival for street gravitas.
Rolls Royce Ghost: Details Waft In. Gently.
By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG RR
SOME months have passed since the Rolls-Royce Ghost’s (né 101EX, a.k.a. “Baby Rolls”) intro and we’ve heard little from Goodwood about Ghost developments.
Yours can confirm that last autumn Rolls-Royce’s small marketing team paraded the Ghost around these United States in a whirlwind tour to showcase what will be Rolls-Royce’s bread and butter “entry” model to potential and current Rolls clientele.
So far, only CAR magazine has actually reviewed the new Roller.
With production set to produce road going stock later this year, what’s left to know is just what’s available to the public on the Rolls-Royce website. The details are tantalizing, if incomplete.
Let’s delve, shall we?
Stock colo(u)r options smartly range from “Diamond Black” to “Claret”; Austrian bull hides tanned in anything from “Dark Spice” to “Moccasin”; and wood veneers as exotic as “Malabar” to “Dark Wenge”. To wit- Rolls promises slick decadence.
The Ghost’s weight curbside will be on the same scale as the much-larger Phantom – 5,445 lbs (compared to 5,798 lbs). Performance, though, will be swifter: 0-60 mph happens in 4.8 seconds (compared to 5.7 seconds).
This step up is thanks to the 563 hp V12 that takes aim at the Bentley Continental series. It also eclipses the pricier Phantom by more than 100 ponies. Still, despite this righteous power, the Ghost is classified as ULEV II.
Oddly, MPG figures have yet to be published. Not that the Rolls client would care, but us enthusiasts do.
As Rolls-Royce increases output, (1,700 Ghost inquiries worldwide, according to The Times) the bulk of new orders are likely to be Ghosts. Whether this will undermine Phantom sales (hopefully not, but probably) and, for that matter, rival Bentley Continental Flying Spur sales, remains to be seen.
Watch this space.
In Motion: Rolls-Royce Ghost
By Gunnar Heinrich | YouTube
DESIGNED to impress.
But not boast.
In this promotional video, entirely devoid of comment or ambient sound, but treated with electric guitar strains, we’re given visual clues – or cues – as to the new Rolls-Royce Ghost’s character… charm, wit, and the rest.
It looks the part of a remarkable motor car. The camera and post work is impressive: flowing gracefully low to high, from one street corner to the next, from inside to outside to inside again, and then jarring between shots as if to prove that the subject’s modern and edgy.
We see people, but they do not turn to stare at the newest Rolls-Royce. Instead, we’re given to infer that they are paying attention – peripherally.
Again, the Ghost impresses without boasting.
That said, the Ghost is taking Rolls tradition and shaking it by the scruff of its lambswool neck. Out with the staid, and any references to “silver cars” certainly, and in with the fresh new direction set for by Ian Callum & Co.
The Baby Rolls looks even better in motion.
Rolls Royce Ghost Pics Online
Baby Rolls on parade.
By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG Rolls-Royce Motor Cars
CASTING a lovely specter upon the automotive landscape, like an apparition the Rolls-Royce Ghost has finally made its official appearance online.
Not only is the Ghost a bold step into a higher production volume for the marque, the car’s marketing is an even edgier departure from the Royce’s stolid past. With edgy video and imagery that’s set in sunny locales (not rainy Britannia), the new Roller is aimed towards a younger demographic with cash to burn.
Evidence of this new, hipper direction is in a smaller, sportier profile that features narrow c-pillars (or is it d-pillars in this case?) which – gasp! -allow outsiders to see the lucky occupants inside and don’t obscure three lanes of following traffic.
Also, the new car is stuffed full of electronic goodies that bring comfort to a new level of penultimate.
Each corner is suspended by air, articulated by double wishbones up front and a rear multi-link axle. Electronics compute load calculations every 2.5 milliseconds, and Rolls says it can detect if a passenger moves from one side to the other and compensate accordingly. It can also raise or lower the car by an inch to help getting in and out (although we question the usefulness of 25mm adjustment) – Tim Pollard, CAR.
The sedan does feature similar attributes with the BMW 7-Series. By no means a bad thing, but the lower bolster of that rear bench is awfully familiar…
Having oggled at and sat in the 200EX – the Ghost’s almost identical concept – I can report that in touch ‘n feel, the execution is flawlessly perfectionist as any Rolls aficionado would come to expect. That said, with modernity comes some loss of tradition.
The leather (a hallmark of any true Royce) is, for all intents and purposes, supple, sweetly scented, delicate to the touch and very much what you’d find in a BMW 7er. The same is true for the glossy wood.
It’s all very Bavarian – just as the Bentley Continental Flying Spur has that inescapable Audi-feel.
But not to worry, traditionalists, the car’s design remains a beautiful step forward that keeps the marque’s overall “mission statement” well in tact.
Showing in Frankfurt, the new “baby Rolls” will waft onto the world’s boulevards in the autumn of next year.
