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2022 Rolls-Royce Ghost Black Badge | Ecstasy in the shadows

Every now and again, something hits my driveway that absolutely stumps me. It can be tricky enough to come up with something to write about the fifth Hyundai Sonata or third Jeep Wrangler I’ve driven in the space of 18 months, but something like the 2022 Rolls-Royce Ghost Black Badge presents a very different conundrum: What can I possibly say to the person who has a half million dollars to spend on their next ride? I rounded up there but not by much. Before tax, tags and your driverÂ’s salary, this Ghost checks in at $484,950. Of that, $43,850 goes to Black Badge, which, when boiled down to its purest essence, is an enthusiastÂ’s equipment package with some rather dramatic aesthetic components. Rolls-RoyceÂ’s reputation is that of a builder of cars meant to be driven in rather than driven, but Ghost is the de facto “driverÂ’s” four-door in the lineup, and Black Badge is as close to an antidote to that cliche as youÂ’ll find in the company's portfolio. While it is a performance model, Black Badge doesn't completely blow the doors off the Ghost's already-impressive baseline performance. It benefits from an additional 29 horsepower and 57 pound-feet of torque (for a total of 583 hp and 663 lb-ft, respectively) and retuned air springs that “alleviate body roll under more assertive cornering.” The brakes were also tweaked for more immediate response and shorter pedal travel, but the clamps themselves are identical to a standard GhostÂ’s. Put another way, Black Badge is a performance package that happens to cost more than some performance cars. Welcome to tier 0 of car ownership. ThatÂ’s a hollow greeting, of course. Rolls-Royce sold a grand total of 5,586 (ahem) motor cars in 2021, and not one of them is among my permanent collection. YouÂ’re shocked, I know. Statistically, weÂ’re quite likely to be in the same boat. IÂ’m living vicariously through the Rolls-Royce marketing budget and youÂ’re living vicariously through me. Too bad. IÂ’m pretty boring. So boring that the best outing I could come up with was a jaunt to a lake cottage just 30 miles or so north of Detroit proper. Given this carÂ’s price point, youÂ’d be forgiven for insisting that the Ghost had better be able to do just about anything one might expect from modern four-wheeled transportation, but realistically, the person who can afford to be chauffeured in a Black Badge can likely call on other forms of transit should the weather take a turn for the worse.

Rolls-Royce releases sketch of Phantom Drophead Coupe Bespoke Waterspeed Collection

A limited-edition Rolls-Royce Phantom is something of an oxymoron. The company only sold 3,630 cars last year, and even fewer of those were its flagship Phantom. However, that isn't keeping the company from regularly revealing even more limited editions of its already hyper-exclusive cars. This is precisely the case with the new Phantom Drophead Coupé Bespoke Waterspeed Collection, a forthcoming model limited to 35 examples.
The special models are inspired by a famous speedboat race on September 1, 1937, between the United States and Great Britain on Lake Maggiore on the Swiss-Italian border. The British fielded the Bluebird K3 hydroplane boat powered by a massive supercharged V12 Rolls-Royce R-Type engine with Sir Malcolm Campbell at the helm. All that displacement shot the sleek watercraft to 129.5 miles per hour, claiming a new world waterspeed record in the process.
For the special commemorative Drophead Coupé model that celebrates "a seminal act of British daring and endeavor," Rolls-Royce is finishing the convertible in Maggiore Blue paint with a brushed steel hood and tonneau cover, along with inlaid wood trim. Rolls is not announcing an official release date or price for the special cars yet, but they are going on sale before the end of the year. Scroll down for the whole story about the car's inspiration.

Rolls-Royce to reach 4,000 units this year

Rolls-Royce is, by nature, an exclusive auto marque, but it has been steadily increasing its sales to the point that it could be looking at 4,000 units by the end of this year, setting a new record for the German-owned British automaker.
You don't even need to go back a decade to find Rolls-Royce sales hovering around the 1,000-unit mark. But that was when Goodwood only offered the Phantom saloon. The subsequent addition of the Phantom DHC and Phantom Coupe helped expand its portfolio, enlarged even further by the addition of the Ghost in 2010, by which time total sales were reaching 3,000 units.
The Spirit of Ecstasy marque has been hovering around the 3,500 mark ever since, but with the Wraith now in the mix and its reach extending into growing markets around the world, Autocar reports that global sales could top 4,000 units this year. (Of course that pales in comparison to one-time sister brand Bentley, which topped 10,000 deliveries last year, but Rolls-Royce typically competes at a higher price bracket.)