Short Take Road Test
There are, by unofficial count, 84 buttons to push in the front cabin of the Rolls-Royce Phantom drophead coupe, each shimmering in chrome or in black Bakelite, but what there is not is a tachometer to track the revs of the whispery quiet but eloquently powerful 453-hp, 6.7-liter V-12. So the engine’s redline is a mystery, but that’s not a problem, since shifting modes are limited to two—drive and low—and both are automatic.
The tach is replaced by a “Power Reserve %” gauge. At any moment while under way in this splendid convertible, a glance tells the driver what’s left in the bank, power-wise. For example, at 70 mph, you’re still rich—you have 86 percent of the car’s power to spend! The owner’s manual informs politely, “You can use this information, for instance, to estimate the acceleration potential when passing or driving in the mountains.” (Mountains? Apparently, people in the market for a half-million-dollar car are not found in our many prairie states.)
The Curious Gesture as Hallmark
Such eccentric gestures—the bonanza of buttons, umbrellas stored in door jambs, cameras front and back, the car’s bank-building face, a picnic tailgate that can hold 330 pounds of brie, rear-hinged “coach doors” that snap closed wickedly via another button, and the feltlike material used to line the wheel wells—are what Rolls-Royce continues to be about, even though this British institution is run by BMW and all the modernist no-nonsense that implies. The curious feature is still the company’s main currency: There’s a button that makes the hood ornament disappear via a trap door, and the great number of bull hides used to cover the puffy-firm seats are from an Alpine herd that, the pitch goes, neither is preyed on by mosquitoes nor suffers scarring from barbed wire. Bulls, you should know, are less prone to the terror of femalehood: stretch marks.
Those seats are not, oddly enough in this car costing $484,450, particularly comfortable. They’re not contoured, Mercedes-Benz fashion, but are more like the overstuffed chairs one supposedly finds in a London gentleman’s club. It’s like you’re a rajah perched atop an expensive cushion, but your elephant in this case has RR stamped on its flanks. Still, the leather aroma is wonderful, the material an exercise in smooth perfection. There’s a wide swath across the dashboard of “cross-banded Santos Palissander,” a honey-hued rosewood so special it’s not in the dictionary. Perhaps it came direct from the manger in Bethlehem—who knows? And speaking of wood, you can get a veranda of teak that wraps around the rear deck, along with a brushed-steel hood and matching A-pillar trim, for $17,550.
This is the long boy of cars—220.8 inches, close to a foot and a half in excess of a long-wheelbase Audi A8. The Phantom comes within 107 pounds of three tons, although with a Rolls, that’s a good thing. The long and flamboyant hood makes the driver feel as if he were at the helm of some brightly painted locomotive, and the pencil-thin steering wheel seems too frail for the job. But the back seat, as luxurious as the ones in the front, isn’t any roomier than a Honda Accord’s.
Alarming Alacrity, Unsurprising Magnetism
That big BMW-designed naturally aspirated V-12, when floored, thrusts this vessel forward with barroom-clearing force. But speed—it’s faster to 60 mph (5.5 seconds) than a Lexus LS460 (6.0) but is a runner-up to a BMW 750Li (5.2) and tops out at 148 mph—isn’t its trump card; it’s the comfort of the ride and the tomblike silence while in motion that owners can brag about. It’s quieter at 70 mph and at wide-open throttle than that well-known hush puppy, the LS460. As for handling, it doesn’t so much corner as it plunges, but it does so as gracefully as the Queen herself, and a sudden lane change ends with a little whiplash of the ship’s great weight, although it’s as manageable as driving any bus. Another curious feature: The stability control can be turned off.
On freeways, curious onlookers pull near, cautiously, and pace it, the way a tourist boat clings to the wake of a whale, its gawking occupants hanging out the windows, eyes measuring the great beast’s immensity. At stops, people shout at you, but there’s not a word about Grey Poupon. Count on “Incredible!” and “Gawd dammmn!” The attention is taxing. But a Rolls-Royce commands respect, and no one risks the social faux pas of asking its price, an impertinence easily aimed at, say, the owner of a Mustang Shelby GT500.
The folding top is a wonder. There’s a superstructure at the header, layers of expensive materials sewn in (cashmere among them, of course), and a 33-second time from the open-to-closed bell that, like the safety-belt warning bell, sounds much like the call-to-dinner xylophone on a transatlantic liner, something owners should recognize.
Talk of the top is always a sign of our story winding down. But time for one more curious feature? Since front suicide doors went out of style about 70 years ago, and thus we have had no experience with them ourselves, entering is highly entertaining if there are spectators around, like making your way into a roof-top pigeon coop for the first time. If you are six feet tall and try to forge forward from the strange angle of the rearview side mirror, your forehead will bang off the roof. In front of an audience, you will pretend it didn’t happen. Try holding the door open and backing in, and you’ll end up falling in. Where does your damned entering leg go? At this point your neighbors will be on their knees. What larks, Pip!
