Driving the ghost

IT'S A ROLLS ROYCE. That immediately makes it unnecessary to go into the details about the acres of woodwork, the gleaming metal accents, the butter-soft leather interiors, or the stupendous sound system. What they don’t tell you about the Ghost, however, is that it’s a Rolls-Royce on speed. Gently depress the accelerator and there’s no change in the murmur of the eerily quiet engine—except that it’s gone from 0 to 100 kilometres per hour in less than six seconds. The cityscape becomes a blur.

Inside, all is calm and quiet. The Ghost, explains Hal Serudin, corporate communications manager, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars (Asia Pacific), is one of the first Rolls-Royce cars to be designed with the owner’s driving pleasure in mind. The larger and far more imposing Phantom, for instance, was made to keep the owner in the back seat.

But how much pleasure can be had driving through Delhi’s notoriously bad traffic or on Noida’s potholed roads? Plenty, says Serudin, pointing out the discreet button that adjusts the Ghost’s ground clearance, allowing it to take India’s roads in its stride. Then there’s the front and rear pneumatic suspension, which makes the worst of roads seem like velvet. The suspension is an improvement on the original BMW-7 series, which is the basis of the Ghost’s chassis and electronics.

The only problem is that there’s precious little space to park the 5.4 metre, 2,360 kg monster. There’s also the fuel that the car consumes; premium unleaded octane 95 (or above) petrol that costs close to Rs 100 a litre. (The Ghost gives you 100 kilometres for 13.6 litres of petrol.) Also, only selected petrol bunks in the cities stock high octane. The chance of running out of gas on the highway is very real.

That’s not deterring buyers; the cost of fuel is chump change for anyone who has Rs 2.5 crore to spend on what is, after all, a car. That’s without any customisation. Change the default executive seats for lounge chairs with a massager and the price goes up. Depending on the goodies picked, and the prevalent taxes, the price of a Ghost can go up to Rs 3 crore (in India).

That’s without factoring in insurance cost. A comprehensive policy costs around Rs 10 lakh a year, more than what most people pay for a car. That would make many people think twice before investing in the Ghost. But not the buyers of nearly 70 Rolls-Royces—most of them Ghosts—that have hit Indian roads in 2010, up from 10 in 2009.

It’s easy to understand why so many people want to own this piece of perfection. Twenty days, 60 people working on one car, seven days of painting and five hours of polishing by hand ... And that’s just the body. Under the hood lie the twin turbo 6.6 litre V12 engines and a whole lot of precision BMW engineering that will make motorheads drool. Top all this with the Spirit of Ecstasy (a ruby-studded insignia comes at ‘price on request’), and there’s little else money can buy for your Ghost.