Rolls-Royce Phantom takes luxury to a whole new high

In reality, though, the possibilities are endless. If you’ve got the head and inclination for it, you can bring your own artist on board, in which case pretty well anything goes. “Rolls-Royce won’t preclude anything - we’re not the arbiters of taste,” says Kristian Dewsnap, of Melbourne’s Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. “The only reason we will ever knock anything back is because it’s not safe or it can’t be certified.”

Rolls-Royce expects every car coming into Australia will be bespoke - and, if you’re playing at this level, why wouldn’t it be? But even before you enter that realm, there are 32 paint colours, 22 leather colours, 12 veneers and four different wheels to choose from in the standard mix. Talk about spoilt for choice. 

Inside the car, every detail feels luxurious, from the (optional) starlight headliner in the roof featuring 1334 hand-carved fibre optic lights (at $22,000), to the retro door grabs, chrome air-vent stops, right down to the fold-away foot rests. And on the floors, the lambswool mats are so plush, the Louboutins simply had to come off so the bared soles could properly enjoy the opulence of it all.

Back in the Gallery, which sits behind tempered glass, a high-definition retina display screen folds away at the push of a button. The bespoke clock with counterweighted hands suits the steel finish of this upgrade. Behind the steering wheel, the instrumentation has moved to digital but maintains the authentic, original Rolls-Royce style of dials and needles.

Under the imposing bonnet, you’d think the 6.75-litre twin-turbo charged V12 engine would be a thumping beast to hear in action. Madam Wheels never had the pleasure of finding out during her look-see as it wasn’t fired up. But Dewsnap assures her that 130kg of additional sound-deadening insulation built not just into the car’s headliner, trunk and doors but also the self-sealing Continental tyres all but eliminates road noise in the cabin. 

The tyres themselves went through about 90 different iterations before Rolls-Royce engineers would accept them as part of the mix, he says. They sit on 22-inch alloy wheels, the largest ever seen on a Rolls, delivering the perfect two-to-one ratio in profile. A smaller tyre might give an even better ride but the 22-inch versions I saw filled the arches beautifully and are expected to be the tyre of choice for most buyers.

Speaking of the ride, this all-new version of Rolls-Royce’s flagship is underpinned by something new that’s designed to set the brand apart from any other (as if it’s not already there): its so-called “Architecture of Luxury”. That’s basically a fancy term for a new construction technique Rolls-Royce engineers came up with to make this 30 per cent-stiffer iteration of the Phantom ride better, quieter and 10 per cent lighter than the seven versions that have come before it.

The resulting all-aluminium “spaceframe" is scaleable, so will underpin future versions of all existing Rolls-Royce models, as well as the forthcoming SUV, the Cullinan, Dewsnap told Madam Wheels during her one-on-one inspection of the Phantom. Rolls-Royce will take the high road with this IP, he says, leaving the low road to other “so-called luxury manufacturers” which seek to save money by sharing ideas. Rolls-Royce is keeping Mum on its Architecture. 

“The platform has been designed and commissioned by Rolls-Royce for itself, and it is not to be shared with anyone else,” he says. (Don’t you LOVE that, ladies!) “This will be the underpinning of a Rolls-Royce and Rolls-Royce only. We’re maintaining the exclusivity of the brand.”

And in a lovely one-way relationship, there’s nothing to stop Rolls-Royce from taking the best of the rest from its parent group, BMW, including its super-smart satellite navigation system which includes 3D maps and live traffic features. Rolls-Royce describes its 7x3 high-resolution Head-Up display as industry-leading, and the car provides a WIFI hotspot, too. Of course.

Overall, Phantom VIII is being billed as the most technologically advanced Rolls-Royce ever, featuring every assistance system you’d expect such as all-round and top-down cameras, active cruise control and collision/pedestrian/cross-traffic and lane-changing warnings. The brand’s Flagbearer system is also in place, involving a windscreen-mounted camera system which reads the road ahead and proactively adjusts the car’s suspension to contribute to the “magic carpet ride”. Not a drop of champagne would be at risk even when cornering at speed - anti-roll bars engage as the car begins to turn, keeping the car completely flat, then disengage while driving in a straight line for a better ride comfort, says Dewsnap. I wouldn’t mind putting that to the test with some Cristal on board.

It helps that the ZF 8-speed auto transmission is also satellite-guided, feeding information to the gearbox so it can prepare the appropriate gear for upcoming road conditions. “You won’t know it’s working,” he says, “but when you drive the car you’ll never feel like it’s in the wrong gear.”

But would you really want to drive yourself in a car that’s designed to be chauffeur-driven? Let me tell you, with its claimed top speed of 250km/h (155mph) and a 5.3-second run time to almost 96km/h (60mph), Madam Wheels would most certainly want to be putting this 2.6-tonne car through its paces for herself.

Outside, the car is unmistakably Phantom, though efforts have been made to soften the box-like lines of earlier variations to give the illusion of the car being in motion rather than a stationary block. Its front grille is larger, more upright and more integrated than it has been, now wrapping around the bonnet and positioning the brand’s muse - it’s Spirit of Ecstasy figurine - at a higher vantage point. New laser headlights (which, with a claimed 600m range, puts them among the world’s most advanced) look somewhat sinister with their newly flattened tops, though the embedded “RR” logo in the light clusters front and back give them a jewel-like finish.

When Rolls-Royce talk about boot space they do it in terms of golf bags - up to three in this case. Madam Wheels and her fetish for road trips, however, would rather talk Louis Vuitton steamer trunks before heading for the hills.

So, ladies, consider this: the latest Rolls-Royce Phantom could see you driving (or being driven, if you must) as if floating in your own private bar, decorated by art of your choice in a cocoon of silence surrounded by exquisite finishes while your toes are buried in lush lambswool. If anyone reading this knows of any other car that even comes close to delivering luxury to this level, Madam Wheels would like to know about it. In the meantime, she’d have to say this truly is a point of difference that no other car could match.