If you haven’t heard of Hex cookware, know that Gordon Ramsay, a brand ambassador, once called them the “Rolls-Royce of frying pans”. At upwards of £700 a pop, they can withstand temperatures of 900 degrees and are apparently a breeze to wash up. Think of a product, the more obscure the better — cat food, cooking chocolate, kitchen cabinets — and you’ll find a company trying to bask in the reflected glory of a niche car company founded 117 years ago.
Of course, Rolls-Royce remains, resolutely, and securely, the only Rolls-Royce of cars. To lose that status would represent a spectacular dropping of the ball for the team in charge. The only safe thing to do, really, is to double down.
Sometimes the company’s attention to detail can seem a little far-fetched. The redesign of the brand’s famous flying lady/spirit of ecstasy figurine for instance, which makes a first appearance on the prow of the new Spectre, with repositioned wings, robes adjusted and size reduced by 16.8mm. Has it really made a difference?
“Everything plays its part,” director of engineering Dr Mihiar Ayoubi tells me. “We wanted to reach an overall drag coefficient of 0.25, so we examined every detail.” It’s the marginal-gains approach made famous in sports coaching, but Rolls has done it for decades. “It’s not just for a good story,” adds CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös. If they didn’t do this type of thing, they would no longer have frying-pan start-ups wanting a sprinkle of the stardust. They would no longer be Rolls-Royce. And so, it is their fate to tinker towards perfection until the end of days.
The Spectre is the brand’s first electric car. And it’s not a side-line or token offering. From here on in, every completely new Rolls-Royce model will be electric. The age of the famous V12 engine is all but over.
You expect a new Rolls-Royce to deliver a visual smack to the chops, and at first sight, the Spectre is really something. Even the staunchest anti-capitalist might sneak out their camera phone when no one’s looking.
There’s no sense of RR marking a new era with new design directions. The famous Pantheon grille is the widest it’s ever been, and the roofline sweeps back to the beautiful Fastback rear along RR’s largest-ever single body panel.
If the penny hasn’t dropped yet: this car is vast. A 5.5m-long super coupe that weighs in at just shy of three tonnes. It’s not unlike approaching a speedboat, and the design team talk of hull lines and bow lines and use the term “waftability” more than could be considered healthy.
Once in the driver’s seat, a quick push on the brake will command the door to close automatically, saving you the indignity of having to reach for the handle and close it yourself. The interior retains a reassuringly analogue flavour, exemplified by the start button which still has “Engine” written on it. With a light press — OK, waft — of the accelerator you’re away; the Spectre’s phenomenally complex Planar Suspension system making this behemoth feel more like a hot-air balloon riding a thermal.
Of course, in the cabin, there is no thought of what goes on behind the curtain. There are no Sport or Eco drive modes to trouble with. No choices at all, in fact. Only silence.
While other electric cars whirr and whine, the Spectre is astonishingly quiet. A 300kg battery layer muffles any noise so well that engineers had to introduce sound back in to the cabin, presumably to prevent occupants from losing their minds. There is an option to add an artificial soundtrack via the speakers: a slightly eerie, but not unlikeable, note that brings to mind a windstorm on Venus. The indicator sound has also had a refresh, fusing samples of the ping of the car’s metal aircon rings and the clinking of whisky glasses. As you’d expect, the bespoke hi-fi is hard to fault. Power is smooth rather than aggressive — the equivalent of 576 hp — achieving a 0-60mph time of around 4.4 seconds, which feels precisely no more nor less than required.
All in, you’re left in no doubt that many of RR’s most famous qualities — quiet, grace, effortless acceleration — have not just been maintained, but enhanced by electric power. While other manufacturers panic and pivot about the new technology, Rolls appears made for it.
It’s heartening that RR is not making a great song and dance that this is an eco product. That would have been a push. Although owning an electric Rolls over a petrol one probably plays a little better for some potential customers.
“Forty per cent of Spectre buyers are new to the brand,” says Rhodri Good, product and launch manager for the model. “I think it’s safe to assume they’ve been waiting for the Spectre.”
RR’s marketing can occasionally feel in thrall to its increasingly young and increasingly international owners, but you can’t say it isn’t working. And who can blame them? After record sales in 2022, the Spectre has been so popular in pre-orders that RR is already considering upping production. Buy one tomorrow, at a cost of £400,000, and it wouldn’t arrive for two years.
To give him his props, co-founder Charles Rolls foresaw it all: “The electric car is perfectly noiseless and clean. There is no smell or vibration. They should become very useful when fixed charging stations can be arranged.” He said this in 1900. Of course, it’s hard to imagine many of these Spectres queueing up for a fixed charge at Watford Gap services, but it’s possible to imagine he’d be rather satisfied with the Spectre. It really is the Rolls-Royce of electric cars. ○
