I must admit that I haven't been very kind to Rolls Royce. When the Rolls Royce/Bentley company was split in two and sold off to BMW and Volkswagen respectively, I prophesied it might well signal the demise of the marques that had been le dernier cri of automotive luxury for generations. The Brits have a genius for designing big, graceful cars, a talent honed over many years, while the Germans were demons of technology but weak on the design front.Of course, Volkswagen romped off with a lot more than just the Bentley label. They also got the factory, the archives and the design staff, so they had a big leg up on BMW and they surged ahead developing Bentley into the uncontested darling of America's privileged elite. Meanwhile, BMW started from scratch, introducing a new Rolls Royce Phantom that looked and handled like a Panzer tank. By the time the Phantom coupe debuted several years later, it seemed clear that the design folks recognized that there was a sharply limited market for stately chariots with Parthenon grilles in today's overcrowded and heavily trafficked world. It could not have been easy to decide to make a fairly radical change, but the entirely new 2010 Ghost is the car that's going to get them back in the game.
Since so many of my regular readers are women (and I firmly believe that in the majority of cases it's a woman who decides which car to buy for the family if not for herself) I must tell you that the Ghost is a car any woman would take great pleasure in driving. Yes it's big; longer, wider and heavier than BMW's 750Li (which is no slouch for size) but the Ghost's drivability is superb. Anyone who's been wrestling an SUV or Van around will think they're in heaven even when parallel parking and trust me, the kids will prefer the Rolls.
The folks at BMW have piled on all the latest gadgets and hi-tech goodies and it goes without saying that the interior appointments are lavish beyond imagining. I'm not going into the usual reports on 0-60MPH sprints, top speeds or engine specs because I think no one who buys a Rolls Royce really cares about beating out a sports car. The Rolls owner has gotten where he/she is going in life and is perfectly content to relax behind the Spirit of Ecstasy icon ( a woman after all)
and follow it down the road. So, if you're a mega-rich mama who likes her creature comforts, this is the Rolls Royce for you, particularly in the new Sable color, the glorious brown of a really good mink coat.
