Rolls-Royce Spectre review: A S$2.1m slice of heaven

ANYONE who’s been harassed by the big boss after hours can probably relate to Mihiar Ayoubi. For years, the director of engineering at Rolls-Royce Motor Cars had to field calls at ungodly hours from Torsten Muller-Otvos, his exacting chief executive.

Eventually, he learnt to respond on autopilot. “Torsten would call me in the middle of the night. At 2 am, I would see his number on my phone,” Ayoubi says. “I would automatically answer, ‘Yes, Torsten, it’s going to be a Rolls-Royce.’”

The “it” in question? The Spectre, the S$2.1 million two-door fastback tasked with ushering 119-year-old Rolls-Royce into the electric age. The job is a monumental one, because there is no turning back from here. Rolls wants out of the combustion engine game entirely by 2030.

Muller-Otvos, who is obsessed with understanding what his well-heeled clients want and how to create products that fit their opulent lifestyles, figured out early that the Spectre would have to be a Rolls-Royce first and an electric car second.

Using that as something of a rallying mantra, he, Ayoubi and director of design Anders Warming came up with an electric Rolls-Royce that – newfangled battery tech notwithstanding – was created to feel a lot like a traditional one.

“What does it mean to be electric? It means nothing,” Ayuobi says philosophically. “An electric drivetrain is just a component, no more, which we try to elevate to the pinnacle level of Rolls-Royce.”

Rolls’ approach to the Spectre involved trying to preserve the ineffable confluence of design, craftsmanship and engineering that defines the brand’s exquisite, hand-made cars: from the unruffled way they glide over the road, to the way their metal air-conditioning vents ring like a Tibetan singing bowl when you tap them.

In terms of making it look the part, Rolls-Royce certainly nailed it with the Spectre. Photos downplay its size tremendously, because its 23-inch wheels and 1.5 metre-long doors (both of them bigger than anything else on offer from Rolls today) keep everything in perfect proportion. But the Spectre is an enormous car.

At nearly 5.5 m nose to tail, it’s longer than BMW’s flagship, the 7 Series, or even a Mercedes-Maybach S-Class. Come to think of it, it’s hard to name a car on Singapore roads that is bigger than the Spectre (apart from a Rolls-Royce Phantom, that is).

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Yet flowing lines make the electric Rolls a graceful, almost waifish thing. It helps too that the Spectre is the most aerodynamically slippery car the brand has ever built, with a drag coefficient (a measure of wind resistance) of just 0.25 Cd.

There’s a small tale of obsession there: The car’s internal model code happens to be RR25, so the development team decided it was 0.25 Cd or bust. When early efforts put them just a few decimal places shy of the target, they resculpted the Spirit of Ecstasy, the brand’s legendary emblem, so that she now leans into the wind more and tucks her wings back higher.

For the same reason, the trademark Pantheon grille is lower and more swept-back in this Rolls-Royce than any other. Drag is the enemy of efficiency, after all, and the slippery shape helps the Spectre wring 530 kilometres from its huge, 700-kilogram, 1.2 kilowatt-hour battery pack.

A Rolls-supplied 22-kilowatt home charger can top up the lithium-ion bad boy in five-and-a-half hours from empty, and that will apparently keep customers happy, the company says. They have other cars for long getaways, if they do them at all.

More numbers – the Spectre’s two motors put out 584 horsepower together, and it wafts to 100 kmh in 4.5 seconds. Other electric cars are quicker, but engineering boss Ayoubi sniffs at the idea of neck-snapping acceleration. “That’s wild horse behaviour,” he says. “It’s not Rolls-Royce.”

Instead, the Spectre’s drivetrain should feel like it cancels momentum, he says. The car shouldn’t feel like something pushed by motors so much as drawn along by an unseen hand from the spirit world.

Sure enough, I don’t think I’ve driven any car that makes accelerating to cruising speed feel so utterly effortless. If anything, the Spectre is almost disorientingly silent at first, whisking you down the road without a whisper.

It isn’t until you cross 110 kmh or so that you can finally hear the rustle of air around its chunky wing mirrors. Below that, it feels like someone pressed the “mute” button on whatever you’re seeing through the windows.

The experience is something to take pleasure in. If you really want something for the ears, you can activate a sound generator – but to my mind the Spectre, like children, should be seen and not heard.

For the most part, the 2.9-tonne coupe flies over the road, too. A properly bad surface will still send the odd jolt through the cabin, but most times the Rolls-Royce feels like it’s simply above it all, for which you can thank a barrage of technology. For example, because the front wheels hit bumps first, the rear suspension knows what’s coming up and prepares its air springs and active dampers accordingly, faster than you can blink.

Four-wheel steering, all-wheel drive and active anti-roll bars are other weapons in the Spectre’s tech arsenal that bestow it with uncanny agility and surefootedness, though overall the car is as reassuringly easy to drive as any true Rolls tends to be. While it does feel like a very large car, guiding it down the road is a matter of fingertips.

The single most old-school quality of the Spectre is the way its controls are largely analogue, simple, and tactile. The instruments are digital, yet even they are stripped down to the essentials, displaying mainly power, speed and range. Apparently, that unfussy approach to interior design is how Rolls-Royce clients like it.

Climbing aboard is still an occasion, however, particularly since the huge doors swing open and shut electrically. Four full-grown adults fit beautifully, with the lounge-like rear seating perfectly comfortable even for people built along supermodel specifications.

And the Spectre does feel like the sort of car you trot out for fun outings with slender friends, or even for some quiet time by yourself. While any Rolls-Royce is ultimately something of a reward to oneself for having played the game of life superbly, the Spectre feels most like a slice of heaven. Every moment at the helm is a moment of respite from the outside world and its demands on your time and attention.

Though it’s arguable whether any car could ever be worth S$2.1 million (closer to S$2.25 million with a Certificate of Entitlement), I imagine the odd billionaire would be happy to pay that for the Spectre’s brand of peace and quiet. It shows there’s more than one way to embrace the idea that money talks, but wealth whispers.

Rolls-Royce Spectre Power/Torque 584 hp/900 Nm Battery Type, Capacity Lithium-ion, 102 kWh Charging Time (Type) 5 hours and 20 minutes at 22 kW (AC), 1 hour and 35 minutes 10 to 80 per cent at 50 kW (DC) Range 530 km 0-100 kmh 4.5 seconds Top Speed 250 kmh Efficiency 22.2 to 23.6 kWh/100 km Agent Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Singapore Price S$2,138,888 excluding COE Available Now