Rolls-Royce Ghost Black Badge
Dark thoughts
Rolls Royce Ghost Black badge
© press-inform – the press office
Who doesn’t want that – to be different! And if an already more than spectacular Rolls-Royce Ghost is not exclusive enough, the gloomy Black Badge should be the best choice.
Money – what is money anyway? It comes and goes, ensures peace, exclusivity and the most pleasant opportunity to simply be different from the others. The unique opportunity to drive one of the most exclusive limousines that one can only imagine in this world costs just under 360,000 euros. A lot of money for some – anything but priceless for being that certain something different from others. The elegant ideal cast on a 21-inch model: the gloomy Rolls-Royce Ghost Black Badge, a black temptation on wheels that takes more than just a sphere away from the automotive as well as the real world. That’s exactly what Black Badge wants, that’s exactly what Black Badge is. “It’s not a sub-brand, it’s a second skin, a kind of canvas for our special customers to express their individuality,” explains Torsten Müller-Ötvös, CEO of the British brand in the hands of BMW.
Black Badge and Rolls-Royce – they somehow belong together, because everything about the brand with the double R wasn’t always just dazzling, bright and glorious. Sir Henry Royce was born into a humble family and became one of the most famous mechanical engineers of his day. CS Rolls was born an aristocrat but was nicknamed “Dirty Rolls” for attending important events at Cambridge University wearing his white tie that was decorated with huge oil stains. The nonconformity, the refusal to adhere to established conventions, define the personality of these two men who, if they were alive today, would inevitably be called disruptors. The word was not invented at the time, but today one suddenly thinks of creative minds like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg or Richard Branson – all unique, eccentric and successful. Their lives have been made easier in some ways because there is more tolerance and room for alternative approaches in the 21st century than ever before in human history.
The rebirth of the brand in 2003 by BMW began with the Phantom, but Rolls-Royce soon realized that there was a new type of customer for whom luxury and quality are important, but with less pomp and more personalization. That defined much of what the Ghost would be when it was unveiled in 2009, which quickly rose to become the best-selling Rolls-Royce in history. At Rolls-Royce, Black Badge is a permanent range of highly individually designed cars that are somehow different and discreetly but emphatically also want to show it to the outside world. It all began with a chance meeting between Rolls-Royce CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös and a customer who sent his Wraith to a tuning workshop, from where it came back with the Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament, wheelset, some details and a black interior. Not wanting a single customer, Rolls-Royce did what many thought was unthinkable and began to create somber versions of each new model. Each ghost can be colored in any of the 44,000 shades that Rolls-Royce offers for its long robe, but the overwhelming majority of customers order them in ?? … black. No less than 100 kilos of the blackest possible color is atomized and applied to an electrostatically charged body before it dries in an oven, receives two more coats of paint and is then hand-polished by four craftsmen.
The radiator grille and the Spirit of Ecstasy are not painted, but instead a chromium electrolyte – just one micrometer thick – is introduced into the traditional process of electroplating in order to achieve the desired darkening effect. The 21-inch wheels are equipped with 44 layers of carbon fiber, have a forged aluminum wheel hub and are attached to the wheel with titanium fasteners. A diamond pattern made of carbon and metal fibers is embedded in the dashboard over several layers of pressed wood and cured at 100 degrees for over an hour. At the special request of the customer, the technical fiber section on the individual rear seats is given the mathematical symbol of the Black Badge family, which stands for the infinite potential.
The smallest Black Badge clock inside is flanked by a world first from Ghost: the front panel illuminated with 152 LEDs, which shows an ethereally glowing lemniscate surrounded by more than 850 stars. Both the constellation and the symbol are invisible when the interior lighting is switched off. A two millimeter thick light guide with 850 stars, which connect with the more than 90,000 lasered points on the entire surface of the black headliner, ensures uniform illumination. At night, the starry sky effect of the roof is particularly impressive when one or the other falling star passes by. But the Ghost Black Badge is not only great for cruising at night. Before driving at full throttle and zigzagging through the pylons, you should remember that the Ghost consists of an aluminum spaceframe structure and uses a special platform that enables a weight distribution of 50:50 – accordingly, it moves fabulously black colossus in the border area.
The 6.8-liter twin-turbo V12 is in itself a piece of engineering excellence and of historic value as it will likely be the Ghost’s last internal combustion engine. It is coupled with the well-known eight-speed automatic, which extracts data from the vehicle’s GPS in order to preselect the ideal gear for every occasion. The Black Badge Ghost has not received a few additional vitamins: 29 additional horsepower (600 in total) and 50 Nm (900 in total), which are duly celebrated with a more solemn exhaust sound thanks to a new exhaust resonator and special hardware. To increase the dynamics, the low mode can be selected using a lever on the steering wheel, which enables faster throttle response and faster gear changes. In the cryptic sport mode, the suspension becomes stiffer at the push of a button because the air springs have increased in volume, the two steering axles are more precise and the combination of engine and transmission reacts more directly above 100 km / h. So the luxury arrangement feels sportier, more dynamic and somehow darker despite the identical performance (0 to 100 km / h in 4.8 seconds and 250 km / h top speed).