First Drive: 2018 Rolls‑Royce Phantom

There aren’t any, and of course, you’d want to own one, given the sniff of a chance. The only point in reviewing a Rolls-Royce Phantom is to examine HOW they’ve made the best car in the world.

A Rolls-Royce transcends the driving experience. You don’t drive through the world: the world is paraded before you, rolling past like a green screen in front of the Spirit of Ecstasy, perched far away from you, piercing the sky with her vaunted wings. This is not motoring; this is the wardrobe that leads silently through to Narnia. Plunging your feet into the deep, deep lambs-wool navy carpets is like brushing past those furs hanging in the wardrobe, something beckoning you further, the smell and feel of a foreign land.

That land is global luxury, on an unparalleled scale. From the outside, this is a car of gargantuan proportions. The wheels are the same height as my four-year-old, the length is extreme (it’s the longest production car), with bodywork streaming out beyond the rear wheels and that long, long bonnet, housing its twin-turbocharged, recently fettled, 6.75-litre V12 engine, in front of the cabin, with the Spirit of Ecstasy rising and falling as the car is unlocked.

But it’s all about the interior, really. This is a car to be driven in, with most owners never experiencing the driver’s seat – in that case you’d buy the Ghost or Wraith. That’s a shame because the silent power from the V12 engine takes the car to 60mph from a standstill in 5.1 seconds and the steering is inexplicable – I have genuinely no idea how the engineers get the movement of those far-off, huge wheels to translate into feather-light, pin-point accurate steering feel through the large, thin rim, while maintaining linear feedback. 

The passenger experience does, however, require decent suspension. Unsurprisingly, Rolls-Royce’s famous “waftability” is exemplary in the Phantom, with local speed humps that normally force my cars to baulk as the front wheels hit them, utterly dismissed by the Phantom. One feels the descent; not the ascent. Not one jot.

The two rear seats (three if you don’t need access to the chilled champagne fridge and two glasses, or to the infotainment controls solely for the rear tablets) are seats taken from a gentleman’s club, made for deep contemplation and utter relaxation, and certainly no disturbing. Our test car had an arctic white leather interior, courtesy of Bavarian bulls, complemented by navy wool and dark gleaming woods lacquered to within an inch of their lives. The seat backs recline, the squabs lift and there are buttons by the rear c-pillar to raise and lower the floor for comfy feet, as well as a button to shut the suicide rear door when one simply can’t be bothered to lean forward and heave. Heaving is not something wealthy people do.

The central rear squab pulls forward to create a navy armrest with two silver buttons which in turn reveal the huge control for media, left and right screens, and so on. From the seat, you can control channel, volume, temperature, lights.. everything the driver has access to.

Up front, there lies the new Phantom’s coup de grace: a dashboard, or “gallery” as Rolls has it, which can be entirely covered in artwork of the owner’s choosing, whether that’s fabric or metalwork or a dusty old Masters from the attic. In the middle, the infotainment screen rises upwards as you enter.

Then, last but not least, although it feels of minor importance in this opulent lounge, is that powertrain. It is comical that a V12 engine with 562bhp and 664lb ft of torque, capable of shifting a 2.5-tonne car more quickly to 60mph than anything else, should be considered almost incidental to the motoring experience offered by its car. Perhaps it’s the fact this is the most silent Rolls-Royce yet, with something like 130kg of sound-deadening aboard, which makes you feel divorced from proceedings below the paintwork.

Whatever. It’s the most sublime way to travel man has yet invented. The end.