2021 Rolls-Royce Ghost review - Haunting beauty

Singapore

IT'S deucedly hard to contemplate a Rolls-Royce without putting it on a pedestal, because they never feel like mere motorcars, somehow transcending glass and metal to symbolise fine taste, high achievement, or whatever it is you want your Rolls to say about you. That much is true of the new Ghost.

It certainly gives you plenty to ponder, being a thing of contradictions. Its makers boast about technological wizardry one moment and traditional craftsmanship the next.

For something called Ghost it has an unmistakable presence. And in the metal, it somehow exudes both grandeur and understatement simultaneously.

That last characteristic is down to masterful design; clean lines and smooth surfaces help the Ghost hide its battleship dimensions. Rolls-Royce says it was sculpted to a "post-opulence" philosophy, and juxtaposed with this, the larger Phantom looks almost comically overstyled.

But if the Ghost defies its bulk visually, it pulls the same trick when on the go.

There's a slightly ethereal quality to the way it moves, whether tiptoeing through slow traffic or hustling along quiet roads (purely in the name of road testing, of course).

It has all wheel drive, all wheel steering, air suspension and active anti-roll bars, all of which conspire to keep the Ghost as unfussed about hurtling around corners as it is about deleting bumps that come your way.

The finer experience is to be had when those coach-mounted rear doors welcome you into the sumptuous rear seats.

Yet, what's truly special about the Rolls is not how much room it offers or even how unruffled it leaves you feeling, but how its tiniest details have been obsessed over.

What other car do you know of has power doors with gyroscopes in them so they don't flop open if the car is on an incline, or a dashboard panel with 90,000 laser-etched dots to ensure that the 152 LEDs that illuminate it disperse their light evenly?

What car but a Rolls-Royce would ever have been judged too quiet by its engineers, who then carefully selected noises to reintroduce, in order to replace disconcerting silence with a soothing whisper?

Now imagine all that obsessiveness and ability being put to work on customising your Ghost for you, and you begin to grasp the essence of Rolls-Royce.

Buying one and making it just so is, in effect, an act of putting yourself on a pedestal.

Rolls-Royce Ghost Extended

Engine 6,749cc, turbocharged V12 Power 571hp at 5,000pm Torque 850Nm at 1,600rpm Gearbox 8-speed automatic 0-100km/h 4.8 seconds Top Speed 250km/h (limited) Fuel Efficiency 15.7L/100km Agent Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Singapore Price S$1,418,888 without COE Available Now