By Somnath Chatterjee
Delhi NCR,
December 2020
Just unveiled a few months ago worldwide, the new Rolls-Royce Ghost has already arrived in India courtesy Rolls-Royce Motor Cars New Delhi.
The name of the car is rather apt since after you close the electrically operated rear-door, it is eerily quiet inside.On second thoughts, it is actually more important to talk about the interior of the new Ghost first because this is where most owners would be spending their time. Rolls-Royce says that its clients, particularly in Asia, prefer the sumptuous rear-seat and like to be chauffeur driven. For those owners, there is plenty to like. Even the first touch points are carefully calibrated for a pure luxury experience. Now you do not even need to close the door manually, as it has powered doors for all operations.
Ingress and egress is as graceful as it can be while the wrap-around lounge seating in the Ghost is a lovely place to spend time in. The new Ghost is more spacious owing in part to its new bespoke architecture. There is either a short-wheelbase model or the long-wheelbase version, which adds even more space (170mm to be exact).
Sitting at the rear seat you can gaze at the starlight headliner or fondle the lovely switchgear scattered all over. Up-front the design of the cabin is a brilliant mix of traditional Rolls-Royce and a heady dose of subtle modernity. The new Ghost interior does not subscribe to the modern-day luxury car ethos of cramming in technology, as instead it concentrates on the key pillars of luxury.
You have leather, wood and metal all over while even the basic knobs or some of the controls look like they belong in an art museum. There is a bespoke audio system but it is a greater achievement that travelling in complete silence is arguably the bigger highlight here. Rolls-Royce has gone to extreme lengths to achieve in-cabin silence with tuning the sound of every material or every control used along with adding in 100kg of sound damping material. The cabin was so silent that ‘acoustic specialists’ have even added a ‘whisper’.
New to the Ghost is a Micro-Environment Purification System plus it has LED and laser headlights with more than 600m of illuminated range, vision assist, alertness assistant, a four-camera system with panoramic view, all-round visibility and helicopter view, active cruise control, collision warning, cross-traffic warning, lane departure and lane change warning, a 7×3 high-resolution head-up display, Wi-Fi hotspot, self-park etc.
As much as we think that the Ghost is not powered by an engine at all since it is so quiet, it does get one albeit a big one in-fact. This is a bespoke 6.75-litre twin-turbocharged V12 with an all-wheel steer set-up. The aluminum space-frame which is all-new for the Ghost also plays a crucial role in greater rigidity and also better weight distribution along with improvements in ride/handling. We must mention the Planar Suspension System and the Flagbearer system, which uses a suite of cameras to watch and prepare the suspension for the road ahead.
As is with any Rolls-Royce, customization, bespoke hand-made finish and a carefully curated mix of indulgent materials is what further makes this a special luxury car. In terms of its design, we are certainly fans of its sleek styling while a closer look reveals the lengths at which Rolls-Royce have gone for a clean look with less lines and clutter. It is stunning and very much the perfect luxury car for the modern day Maharaja or Business Tycoon. Even itsINR 7cr price seems justified against all that Rolls-Royce have poured into its newest offering.
