Is the Ghost the ultimate ‘understated’ luxury limo?
Rolls-Royce Ghost. It’s an appropriate name for the model that sits neither fully in the present nor in the future, at least so far as Rolls-Royce’s product planners are concerned.On one hand, the arrival of this substantial limousine completed an overhaul for the line-up at Goodwood, which began with the Rolls-Royce Phantom in 2017, before the arrival in 2018 of the Rolls-Royce Cullinan crossover (which, inevitably, set new sales records for the company). Now, in the Ghost, and in its sport-light sibling, the Rolls-Royce Ghost Black Badge, we have the Phantom’s not so junior understudy.The circle is complete, so to speak, and more fundamentally so than you might think. The Ghost sits for the first time on the same bespoke aluminium ‘Architecture of Luxury’ that underpins its siblings, rather than an adapted BMW 7 Series platform, as was the case when its predecessor was introduced in 2009.What we’ll now discover is whether Rolls-Royce has done enough to see off stiff competition. Because whatever language you use to characterise your product, being the one who sets the standard is ultimately what really matters in the ultra-luxury class.
