The Black Badge family was created for a younger set of clients who seek a Rolls-Royce with higher driving performance and free of superfluous design.
Rolls-Royce debuted Black Badge with Wraith and Ghost in 2016, followed by Dawn in 2017 then Cullinan in 2019.
For Black Badge Ghost, the super-luxury model comes with the motor car industry's darkest black, where 45kg of paint is atomised and applied to an electrostatically charged body in white before being oven dried.
The car then receives two layers of clear coat before being hand-polished by a team of four craftsmen to produce the marque’s signature high-gloss piano finish.
The dark theme is also carried onto the high-polished Spirit of Ecstasy and Pantheon Grille.
Instead of simply painting these components, a specific chrome electrolyte is introduced to the traditional chrome plating process that is co-deposited on the stainless-steel substrate to darken the finish.
Its final thickness is just one micrometre – around one hundredth of the width of a human hair.
The components are precision-polished by hand to achieve a mirror-black chrome finish before it is fitted to the motor car.
The barrel of the 21-inch composite wheels feature 44 layers of carbon fibre for greater strength while the 3D-forged aluminium hub is bonded to the rim using aerospace-grade titanium fasteners and finished with the marque’s hallmark Floating Hubcap.
For the interior, a complex but subtle weave that incorporates a deep diamond pattern rendered in carbon and metallic fibres is used.
If specified in the client’s commission, the Technical Fibre ‘Waterfall’ section of the individual rear seats receives the Black Badge family motif: the mathematical symbol that represents potential infinity known as a Lemniscate.
Rendered in aerospace-grade aluminium on the lid of Black Badge Ghost’s Champagne cooler, it is applied between the third and fourth layer of a total of six layers of subtly tinted lacquer, creating the illusion that the symbol is floating above the Technical Fibre veneer.
Air vent surrounds on the dashboard and in the rear cabin are darkened using physical vapour deposition, one of the few methods of
colouring metal that ensures parts will not discolour or tarnish over time or through repeated use.
The Post Opulent principles of simplicity have also been applied to dramatic effect in the Black Badge Ghost timepiece design: only the tips of the hands and the twelve, three, six and nine o'clock markers are picked out, in a subdued chrome finish, creating a remarkably minimal clock.
The timepiece is flanked by a world-first Bespoke innovation that debuted with Ghost: the Illuminated Fascia, which displays 850stars surrounding an ethereal glowing Lemniscate, the mathematical symbol that represents infinity.
For Black Badge Ghost, the all-wheel drive, four-wheel steering and the award-winning Planar Suspension system were re-engineered, including the fitting of more voluminous air springs to alleviate body roll under more assertive cornering.
The 6.75-litre V12 twin-turbocharged engine has also been exploited to generate an extra 29PS, creating a total output of 600PS/592hp with the addition of a further 50Nm of torque, for a total of 900Nm.
A 0-100 sprint can be done in 4.7 seconds.
As with all products in the marque’s Black Badge portfolio, the ‘Low’ button situated on the gear selection stalk unlocks Black Badge Ghost’s full suite of technologies.
This is asserted by the amplification of the motor car's engine through an entirely new exhaust system, subtly announcing its potency.
All 900Nm of torque is available from just 1,700rpm and, once underway in Low Mode, gearshift speeds are increased by 50% when the throttle is depressed to 90%, delivering Black Badge Ghost’s abundant power reserves with dramatic immediacy.
To bolster confidence when exploiting Black Badge Ghost, the braking bite point has been raised and pedal travel decreased.
The Black Badge Ghost is expected to be launched in Malaysia within the next few months with pricing to be announced then.
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars chief executive officer Torsten Müller-Ötvös said the company had considerable debate before launching Black Badge in 2016 that would be darker in aesthetic, more urgent in personality and dramatic in material treatment.
“In the five years since Black Badge became publicly available, this bold family of motor cars has come to symbolise the pinnacle of a new type of super-luxury product, setting in motion a shift across the wider luxury industry.
“Subsequently, nearly all luxury makers create products that seek to capture the Black Badge spirit,” he said.
