Rolls-Royce News

Rolls-Royce has joined Bentley in a performance push at the top end of motoring and has upgraded the output of its 6.6-litre Ghost, which was already “more than adequate”, to a high-performance “perfectly adequate”.The car’s V12 engine has been tuned to liberate an extra 22 kiloWatts, with 80 per cent of the power available from idle. The result is a 0-100km/h sprint time of just 4.7 seconds, despite the heft of a car that qualifies as a full-scale limousine.Rolls-Royce has tagged the result as its Ghost V-Specification and has upgraded it with everything from 21-inch polished alloy wheels to ‘visible’ chrome exhausts and a number of V-Specification logos on everything from the pinstriping on the body to the seats.“Wraith has built on the success of Ghost in attracting younger, more dynamic group of successful men and women to the marque. Ghost V-Specification’s contemporary aesthetic reflects this,” the global production communications manager, Andrew Boyle, tells Carsguide.Production has already begun on the V-Specification cars and will run until June, although Boyle cannot confirm final pricing or numbers for Australia despite acknowledging the car will top the $645,000 sticker for a regular Ghost.The V-Specification comes as Rolls-Royce works to lower the age of its owners, a number that’s been coming down since the arrival of the Ghost in 2009 and the arrival of the Ghost-based Wraith coupe last year. But Rolls-Royce denies any long-term performance push.“It is a one-off vehicle available for a limited period of time. We have asked our engineers to deliver a small power increase to add to its exclusivity,” says Boyle. “V-specification does not change the character of a Rolls-Royce; it merely offers another bespoke Collection to our connoisseur and collector customers.But what about a V-Specification car based on the Wraith, which already starts with a harder edge. “We have no current plans to announce in this direction. In short, no. Ghost and Wraith engineering teams are separate. The company also resists any comparison with Bentley, or suggestions that the two brands are engaged in any sort of arms race.“Rolls-Royce and Bentley are two very different marques that operate in two distinct market segments. As the world’s leading super-luxury goods company our competition comes from goods outside the automotive sector such as helicopters, fine art, yachts.“Rolls-Royce Motor Cars would never 'push the power' of its models. We engineer our cars with a commitment to fine engineering and craftsmanship. Mass-luxury segment model marketing techniques never inform our thinking. And there is a sideswipe for Bentley, too.“We do not chase volume. Our customers value the rarity of these automotive works of art and do not wish to see them on every street corner. A volume driven approach may be appropriate to other organisations, but is not appropriate for Rolls-Royce.”But Bentley has just sharpened the power of its Continental GT V8 S and is coming off a record sales year, with global deliveries in 2013 up by 19 per cent to 10,120 cars. According to Bentley’s chairman, Wolfgang Schreiber, the S - available as both a coupe and convertible - is more of the same for the GT.“It is more agile, with with a lower and uprated suspension, faster, with more power and more distinctive with its signature S styling and a unique V8 S soundtrack,” he says. Power is up to 389 kiloWatts, with peak torque of 680 Newton-metres for a 0-100km/h that just edges the V-Specification at 4.3 seconds.

There's rich, and then there's completely over-indulged. Undergraduate students at a university in Dubai stuff the carpark with a fleet of supercars that are their daily drivers. The American University of Dubai students turn up for classes in a range of exotic and expensive metal that looks like a convoy from a Top Gear episode.  Ferraris, Rolls-Royces, Aston Martins, Bentleys, Porsches and Maseratis have all been photographed in the carpark by one of the students, Meeka Nasser, who has posted them on Reddit.Nasser has told media he was astounded by the high-end level of vehicles in the carpark. "Because $200,000 Cayennes and Range Rovers are a dime a dozen here, I only included a few of them in the album. Keep in mind, almost all of the students are between 18 and 24 years old, as the graduate programe is pretty tiny here. The students that drive the insanely expensive cars (Rolls Royces and Bentleys etc.) are usually local (Emirati) for those wonderin," he wrote.The American University in Dubai is a private university that has been operating in the United Arab Emirates capital for nearly 20 years, and aims to offer an American-style education to both Emirates residents and expatriates. Tuition starts at a base level of around $12,000 per semester.

We've seen Tax The Rich punishing a Ferrari Enzo before, but this time they're giving us a closer look at the action in all the grace of slow-motion.It's the latest in a series from the mystery team, who take supercars to places they're never supposed to be. Over the past couple of years we've seen the Enzo, a Ferrari 288 GTO, Bugatti EB110 SS, Rolls Royce Phantom, twin Ferrari F50s and a Jaguar XJ220 thrashed through farm paddocks and down crumbling rural bitumen, dirt and gravel roads.While the identity of the Tax The Rich driver is officially unknown -- and despite his denials -- it's becoming increasingly obvious there's a connection to Harry Hunt, the rally driver son of Brit real estate magnate Jon Hunt, who's the owner of the palatial Heveningham Hall manor estate identifiable in some of the videos.Watch the Ferarri drifting, sliding and doing burnouts.This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott 

Ken Block makes do with a specially-built Ford Fiesta Gymkhana thrash machine for his video ventures, but the anonymous souls at Tax The Rich like to create their sideways sequences using museum-grade thoroughbred supercars or ultra-luxury machines.Over the past 18 months we’ve seen a Ferrari 288 GTO, Bugatti EB110 SS, Rolls Royce Phantom, twin Ferrari F50s, a Ferrari Enzo, and a Jaguar XJ220 thrashed mercilessly around their agricultural playground, to the chagrin of supercar fanciers and the guilty pleasure of everyone else.For their latest and tenth instalment, the mega-dollar 288 GTO returns to the Tax The Rich farm, where they put it through the usual opposite-lock action across mud, gravel and tarmac, all to the tune of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries.The 288 GTO was developed for Group B rallying, but never raced due to the disbanding of the category, and the 272 road cars are now worth serious money. Perfect for the Tax The Rich treatment then!The highlight this time are the slo-mo figure-eights the GTO executes within the tight confines of a hay shed, with its composite body slewing sideways just inches from brick walls.And as with recent entries, it looks like there’s a clue to the subject of the next Tax The Rich instalment, with what looks to be a prototype Ferrari F40 (chassis 74047 as seen below) appearing through smoke at the end of the film. If so, it will be the most precious to be pummelled yet.While the identities of the Tax The Rich progenitors officially remain a mystery, the elaborate gates shown in the Phantom film just happen to signify the entrance to Heveningham Hall, a palatial 25 bedroom manor that makes Downton Abbey look like an outhouse, set in 460 acres of lush Suffolk farmland. Significantly, Heveningham Hall is owned by real-estate magnate Jon Hunt, and his rally driver son Harry…This reporter is on Twitter: @Mal_Flynn Watch the desktop version of the Tax The Rich Ferrari 288 GTO video here.  

No, this isn't another of those hoaxes showing a supposedly diamond-covered car owned by a Middle-East sheik -- which always turn out to be a crystal covered show car created for a US customisation house.These are real diamonds, and the car has been built by Rolls-Royce's in-house special options team. The one-off edition Celestial Phantom was unveiled overnight at Dubai international motor show with a whole new level of bling.The skilled handcrafting team in Rolls-Royce's Bespoke department have set 446 jewelry-grade diamonds in the Phantom's doors, centre console and rear seat privacy divider -- proving there is probably no limit to what can be ordered from Rolls-Royce as a personal modification.Like other Rolls-Royces, the Celestial Phantom has the option of a 'starlight headliner' -- an inner roof set with more than 1000 fibre optic lights to mimic the night sky. But on the Dubai show car, the headliner is a precise sky map of the exact positions of those stars as seen over the brand's British headquarters on January 1, 2003: the date the first Celestial Phantom was handed over to its new owner.Rolls-Royce worked with a UK planetarium to map out the roof, guaranteed to be as astronomically correct as the car's price is guaranteed to be astronomically high. They're not revealing the price tag, but the car is likely to go into a serious collector's garage.This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott  

Try identifying all 77 of these cars from popular television shows and movies, pictured in cartoon style by the BBC's Autos website. Some of them will be easy to guess: The Dukes of Hazzard's General Lee, Ghostbuster's ECTO-1, and the DeLorean from Back to the Future are all in our image above. But see how you go with the other 74. Head over to the BBC Autos page and try to guess the cars BEFORE you hover over the image to reveal their identity. And when you've got a score, hand the game over to any children in your vicinity, to see how they fare with automotive popular culture. Given that some of the cars go back a few decades, this might be the only computer game you're ever going to beat the kids at. This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott    

The Rolls-Royce brand manager in Dubai, Mohammed El-Arishy, has ordered a very special edition from his company's customisation arm, Rolls-Royce Bespoke. Called the Chicane Phantom Coupe, the one-off is a tribute to the Goodwood Circuit near the storied brand's British HQ.To salute the race venue, the Phantom's wood-trimmed interior has been ditched in favour of ultra-modern carbon-fibre, a chequered flag has been embroidered into the seating, and a metal plaque featuring the Goodwood track map installed.Exterior accents have been finished in matte black, and the bodywork painted a gunmetal grey with matching wheels -- the first time they've been painted on a modern Roller.“I wanted to create a motor car that captures the unique atmosphere and history of the Goodwood Motor Circuit,” El-Arishy said. And we have to admit that while we've seen a lot of garish bespoke work on Rolls-Royces -- some of it from El-Arishy's home in the United Arab Emirates capital -- his creation is restrained and tasteful, if a departure from normal fit-out.This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott 

Never say never – at least at Rolls-Royce. In just months the luxury brand has backflipped on the statement they’d never build an SUV, announcing the reversal at Frankfurt motor show."We are intensively thinking about entering the SUV segment," Rolls-Royce CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös said at the event. The competition for the best concept design will heat up at the company, now in a catch-up race with rival Bentley who has already pre-empted this move, leading the charge with the ultra-luxurious EXP 9 F concept.Production of the high-riding Bentley will begin in 2016, at least a full year before Rolls-Royce can respond in the showroom.  Even so, Rolls-Royce and its parental conglomerate in Bavaria will likely use this opportunity to develop a large SUV platform that will give buyers an alternative to the Audi Q7 and Mercedes-Benz GL-Class. Just another sweetener for venturing into what has become a lucrative market segment.While every Rolls-Royce is hand-built in their UK Goodwood factory, the British brand has access to BMW's extensive parts bin, so that could help fast-track a future concept into reality. However, with the cheapest Roller starting at about $600,000 here, expect the SUV to be similarly priced if it hits our shores.

The first one I tried, a Toyota Prius, could happily measure the gaps and reverse into place provided I took care of work on the brake and accelerator, and that's a familiar package now for a range of cars including the Ford Focus.But there are also cars that can parallel park, and even reverse safely out into traffic using a range of radar-style sensors. Some people say the rise of self-parking cars is all about our increasing laziness and the ability of technology to take over the menial, or annoying, tasks in our day-to-day lives.Others might, more controversially, draw a link between self parking cars and the inability of many women to do the job. Before you get too carried away, I should point out that this has now been scientifically proven by a study in the UK that I read about in a book called 'Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps'.The book is by Allan Pease - the body language man - and his wife Barbara, and includes the parking research in a section devoted to women's relative lack of 'spatial awareness'. This apparently affects their ability to read maps, and park, but is offset by greater peripheral vision that makes it easier for women to spot things in a fridge than men.But, moving along, I've also recently heard about a new incentive for self parking cars. It comes as Audi accelerates its work on cars that can valet park themselves, linking electronically to a system inside a carpark that identifies open slots and then guides the car into place. They can then be summoned out of hibernation as needed.There is currently only one self-parking garage in the world, not surprisingly at Audi's headquarters in Germany, although work is progressing at other sites and on other cars. But the idea is that cars which can park themselves will free up extra space for parking. After all, when you park - often with other people in the car - you need clearance to open the doors for access. It's the same for head space, as well as clearance to open a hatchback boot.But if the cars can park autonomously, think about all the extra space in the world. It's something that occurs to me nearly every week as I head to the airport or my local shopping centre and wonder where the space has gone. Cars are obviously getting larger, and SUVs are making an increasing land grab, but am I the only one who thinks that parking slots are being shrunken to get a bigger car - and cash - return on the available space?Then again, there are cars that cannot be helped. In Britain - where 1950s garages designed for tiny Austins now look ludicrous in the face of even a humble Ford Fiesta - I was once driving a long-wheelbase Rolls-Royce Phantom. When I drove into the supermarket to buy some fruit I was shocked to discover that the brutally brilliant limousine actually required four standard-sized parking spots, as it was both too long and too wide for anything less.This reporter is on Twitter: @paulwardgover 

A more menacing Ghost is haunting the dreams of the uber-rich and Rolls-Royce predicts it will be its most popular vehicle with Australian buyers.The fastback-styled Wraith coupe is being promoted as a driver’s car, a departure from the traditional Rolls line-up where the owner tends to appreciate the ambience from the rear seats. Backing up the looks is the most powerful engine ever installed under the Spirit of Ecstasy mascot. The twin-turbo V12 applies 465kW/800Nm to the rear wheels to give the luxury coupe a 0-100km/h time of 4.6 seconds.The car rides on a shortened and widened Ghost platform and is a visually stunning vehicle. The teardrop silhouette transforms the donor car’s stately sedan looks into a genuinely sporty vehicle. Rolls-Royce Asia Pacific general manager Dan Balmer says the Australian preference for performance vehicles extends even to this rarefied end of the market.“We believe the Wraith will be preferred car in the range and our Australian customers also have a very high uptake of bespoke personalisation,” he says. Bespoke treatments - ranging from the expected custom interior and exterior colours to almost any whim the buyer decrees - will add to the $645,000 base price and extend the delivery time beyond early 2014.Australian vehicles will include a birds-eye camera and satellite-assisted eight-speed automatic transmission. The former is to ensure the Wraith isn’t damaged when parking, while the latter provides a predictive application of gearing: matching the transmission to the terrain and the vehicle’s velocity.The pair of doors are rear-hinged and close with the push of a button while the interior is bedecked in open-grain wood veneer panelling, the “starlight” headliner that uses tiny LEDs to simulate a night sky and a multifunction screen. There is no touchscreen functionality: that might leave “unsightly fingerprints ate driver and passenger eye level” according to the press release.The air suspension has been adapted to provide a more engaging drive when going hard without sacrificing the Rolls-Royce “waftability” that isolates the four occupants from potential jostling on back roads - spilling one’s martini would spoil not just the mood but the acres of leather throughout the cabin.