5 days ago
Waftability Meets Flingability In Rolls-Royce's Most Powerful Car
Rolls-Royce's Chris Hardy explains to Iain Macauley the difference Black Badge enhancements make.
Regardless of the grunt under one's right foot, and the dashboard power meter advising, for the most part, 90% or more of the available horses were unused, I never really felt the urge to floor the throttle of any Rolls-Royce and "see what it'll do".
Sure, an occasional exploratory squeeze, but never a prolonged gallop. It felt rude and uncouth. It is, after all, a Rolls-Royce. And it must be, and be seen to be, effortless everywhere. "Effortless" is all about discreet potential, the fullness of that latent potential rarely seen in public.
Several years ago, former Rolls-Royce CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös introduced me to the word "waftability", and described, pre-launch, the marriage between Rolls and EV power, an idea many years in the making before Spectre harnessed the two. And if I hadn't already settled on the way I'd be driving its cars, then that took me a big step closer. After being given a shortened version of Rolls-Royce's "White Gloves Academy" course, aimed at finessing clients' chauffeurs' already considerable skills, that sealed it.
If I was in a Rolls, I'd waft.
Until Black Badge Spectre, itself described as Rolls-Royce's "dark alter ego", got under my skin and played with my mind.
The Black Badge Spectre seemed to shrinl on North Wales ribbony roads
Transitioning From Wafting to Yeehah
In short: a sportier and more engaging Spectre EV, Rolls-Royce's most powerful-ever car at 659bhp, up from the standard car's 577bhp. It has been described and reviewed in Forbes and elsewhere.
I drove the Black Badge Spectre from the city of Birmingham, England, via suburbs, then highways, then country roads to a destination in North Wales which Rolls-Royce described as complementing the Spectre and its 'dark alter ego'. Intrigue climbed into the car with me.
But this car sold me a dummy. The first few miles were certainly waft; 60 miles later, inner 'yeehahs', hot brakes and pursed-lip nodding and smiling of acknowledgment confirmed I'd been hoodwinked.
The gates of Ynyshir, a restaurant with rooms, more of which later, planted the confirmatory full stop, or the period, of the story of the Black Badge Spectre.
The tale had unfolded in convoy with my minders who were in a standard Spectre. I'd been enjoying my car's EV-perfected waftability, then driving the Black Badge progressively more briskly along near-deserted ribbony Welsh roads for around 60 miles.
Then the minders' car, piloted by one of their test drivers, overtook. Ah, reining me in, I thought. But no, it became apparent, within the bounds with which those Welsh roads somehow allow you to have fun without breaking the speed limit, they wanted me to further explore the Spectre's dynamics.
They say big cars shrink if they have a good chassis, and this Spectre was definitely shrinking. Nearly three tonnes and a considerable footprint provide a natural limit, but within those limits this car exuded confidence.
Even parent company BMW's renowned chassis engineers have remarked how well it handles.
It's no go-kart, but for its size and weight it is an incredibly good for an enthusiastic ... More cross-country gallop.
This Car Is A Big Deal, But It Shrinks
I simply forgot how big it was until Rolls-Royce staff stood by ready to guide me through the narrow gateway to Ynyshir, the Michelin 2* restaurant-with-rooms overnight stop.
Chef and owner Gareth Ward, himself a car nut, is a disruptor. The menu was 29 courses, no compromises, culinary creative self-indulgence, sublime theater, minimum around £500 a head, four hours duration. It was an inspired Black Badge Spectre-esque stopover.
"When a Black Badge pulls up and the occupants exit," explained Black Badge Product Manager Chris Hardy over dinner, "it might not be who you'd think it is. That's the point of Black Badge: you can be whoever you want to be - wearing a suit, scrubs, shorts, cowboy boots...
"We're obviously marketing Black Badge Spectre as the most powerful-ever Rolls-Royce, which is a very different to any other launch campaign we've done. But it's still within the safety net of our brand. I think that's why a lot of our clients like it because it's had the Rolls-Royce approval.
"It has a playfulness about it, it's very open, it's aggressive, its unapologetic."
Unapologetic Performance Provides The Encore
The next day outright and unapologetic performance takes centre stage.
Black Badge Spectre, at the touch of one of either of two buttons, becomes a 2.8 tonne supercar-chaser. You won't find references to sport mode or launch control, they're labelled "Spirited" and "Infinity". The raffishly-named Spirited is a reference to a WW2 Spitfire dogfight performance-boost feature; what the Infinity button does is more Star Trek, the bit where USS Enterprise starship Captain Christopher Pike says "hit it".
To demonstrate Infinity, Rolls hired an airport, Sleap in Shropshire. Product specialist and racing driver James, in the passenger seat, took me onto its runway, and told me to stop between a pair of cones.
Press the Infinity button, he said, floor the brake pedal with my left foot, floor the accelerator pedal with my right until the car vibrates, then get off the brake pedal pronto.
Seemingly Defying Physics, Hurled At The Horizon
What happened next seemed to defy physics. "Hurled" about covers it, the silence at odds with an immense gathering of velocity.
Ten seconds later, well into three figures mph, reaching a second set of cones was the cue to stand on the brakes. Some cars, in such circumstances, would display an element of distress. Not the Spectre.
And to go some way towards explaining its Welsh lanes agility James then took me onto another section of runway where cones had been laid out to enable a demonstration of the Spectre's "flingability" (my word, not Rolls'...).
Four wheel steering is a standard setting in the Black Badge Spectre, and it deftly helped belie the car's bulk through the slalom. A second run, with the four wheel steering switched off, revealed night-and-day handling characteristics.
Rolls-Royce describe Black Badge Spectre's performance as "unforgettable".
It's a perfectly-weighted word: both understatement, and accurate.
