Inside the Luxury World of the New Rolls-Royce Ghost

Luxury and personalization collide spectacularly; Rolls-Royce stands as the undisputed maestro, spinning out cars that are rolling masterpieces. Cue the latest Ghost—less a vehicle, more a personal art project on wheels. Whether gazing up at the customized starscape or choosing just the right shade for your hidden umbrella, the Ghost is about making a statement that is its owner. So, let’s ride into the quirky genius of Rolls-Royce’s latest, where opulence meets minimalism in a dance of bespoke splendor.

With the latest iteration of the Ghost, Rolls-Royce has continued to uphold a spirit of customizability. In 2019, Bloomberg reported that over 90% of sold Rolls-Royce cars are so customized that they can essentially be considered one-offs. In the following five years, the automobile company has maintained this dedication to customizability, with the second generation of the Ghost being no exception. Rolls-Royce even describes the car as a blank canvas for customers to transform.

In the interest of brevity, the sheer breadth of customization on offer can be quickly understood with two aspects of the vehicle. The first aspect is the interior roof of the Ghost, which features a mode that shows a starscape, with the customer free to request any constellation they wish to be featured. The second aspect is the included umbrella, which can be purchased with over 20 different color options for its canopy, handle, and beads.

The umbrellas, which are concealed within the vehicle’s doors, are just one of two components carried over from the first generation of the Ghost, with the other being the Spirit of Ecstasy mascot on the hood. Every other aspect was redesigned from the ground up, with those who worked on the vehicle aiming to maintain the appearance and essence of the original model. Such a bold redevelopment speaks volumes of the boldness of those who worked on the new model, especially as the original generation of Ghost soon became Rolls-Royce’s most successful car of all time. The temptation to maintain the status quo must have been enormous. Instead, the creative team decided to reinterpret almost every aspect of the original Ghost.

Possibly the most impressive design element that has been carried over from the earlier Ghost to the new version is the ethos of offering luxury through minimalism. The specific term that designers at Rolls-Royce use is “post-opulence.” At the start of the redevelopment, the company realized that its customers were eager for an understated Rolls-Royce, and so the designers set about “post-opulencing” every aspect of the Ghost. This extends to much more than just the physical materials and angles of the vehicle. For instance, the interior of the car is completely soundproof, so much so that Rolls-Royce engineers had to add a slight whisper sound to eliminate the strange sensation that complete silence left on those who sat inside.

This near silence also demonstrates how the essence of the forefather of the Ghost, the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, can clearly be felt in this latest iteration. The Silver Ghost, which was in production exactly 100 years ago, was named due to its then astoundingly quiet engine. Numerous media outlets named it as the best car in the world at the time, and as chief executive officer Torsten Müller-Ötvös has stated, “The Silver Ghost’s unequaled marriage of performance, strength, reliability, technological innovation, driver engagement, and comfort provides a template for everything we do more than a century later.” Anyone who has been lucky enough to experience either generation of the Ghost is sure to agree.

Since 1906, Rolls-Royce has been synonymous with the highest quality in motoring. Its commitment to innovation shines through with the latest iteration of the highly successful Ghost automobile, which has been almost entirely redesigned.

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