Rolls-Royce Phantom
By Paul Borden

What they first built has lasted. Their cars carry the same prestige, respect and awe today that they did more than a century ago when Autocar magazine tabbed the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost "the best car in the world."

The 2007 Phantom carries on the Rolls-Royce tradition, but also has its own badge of distinction. It is the BMW’s first effort with Rolls-Royce since it gained control of the famed marque. (See accompanying story.)

Fortunately, BMW’s designers and engineers recognized their responsibility to history and did not take their assignment as simply an opportunity to build a bigger BMW. (Not that there would be anything wrong with that.)

The DNA that makes a Rolls-Royce a Rolls-Royce is very much in the evidence in the Phantom, which includes the Parthenon grille, long hood and wheelbase, short front overhang, a thick C pillar that provides privacy to backseat occupants without the need for curtains, flat floors, a body height that is two times the height of the tires and luxurious, soft leather throughout. Reminders that you have left the keys in the ignition or haven’t fastened your seatbelt are accomplished with a gentle chime.

There are so many fine touches, it's almost impossible to list them all.

The Rolls-Royce emblem on the wheel center caps are weighted and mounted so that the R-R badging remains upright not only when the car is parked but also when it is moving.

The famed "Spirit of Ecstasy" mascot, or hood ornament, at the top of the front grille may be retracted to keep it safe from vandalism while parked. It retracts automatically when the key fob remote is used to lock the car or it can be done manually using a switch in the upper glove box.

No need to reach back outside in the rain to close the reverse-hinged rear doors. That may be accomplished with the touch of a button. Rolls-Royce calls them coach doors, but you may know them better as suicide doors, so-called because before the days of seatbelts, people thought riders could easily fall out should the reverse-opening door fly open while the car was in motion. No fear of that with the Phantom. On the Phantom, the rear doors lock automatically when the car reaches 2.4 miles-per-hour, and if a door isn’t closed all the way, the car stops when it reaches the same speed.

Speaking of rain and the rear doors, each holds an umbrella that may be accessed from the lead edge. The rear passenger compartment has beautiful wood picnic tables that fold down from the backs of the front seats, and lamb's wool fl oor mats entice you to go barefoot. The wood trim throughout the interior is all cut from one section of a tree, which not only means you can fi nd the same pattern of knots repeated through the car, each interior also is slightly different for every Phantom produced. The headliner is a wool-and-cashmere blend.

Throughout much of the world, most Rolls- Royce cars are chauffeur-driven, but that's not true for the United States. In the U.S., only about fi ve percent are chauffeur-driven, and as a driver, probably the fi rst thing you will notice about the Phantom will be the steering wheel. For a car this size (229.7 inches long, 78.3 inches wide and weighing a robust 5,622 pounds), you may expect a big, thick, hefty wheel like you might fi nd on a heavy-duty pickup truck. You would be wrong. The steering wheel—the thickness of the grip—is bone thin, in fact, almost delicate.

Not that it creates any handling problems, because it doesn’t. In fact, the Phantom handles quite easily through traffi c and parks with little diffi culty. Why you would want to turn it over to a chauffeur is beyond me. On the highway, it glides along effortlessly, though you must pay attention if you don’t set cruise control because the speedometer can creep up on you.

That’s because under that long Phantom hood is a 6.75-liter V12 engine pumping out 453 horsepower and 531 pound-feet of torque to the rear wheels via a six-speed automatic transmission. In the early days, Charles Rolls entered the cars his company produced in racing events, and though they weren’t always the fastest, they often proved to be the most durable— and quietest, which they still are.

Pricing for the base Phantom starts at $333,350 plus $2,000 for destination and delivery and $3,000 for a gas-guzzler tax. (Fuel consumption is 13 miles-per-gallon city, 19 highway.) The Phantom provided for our drive included a slew of options that ran the total to $374,300. An Extended Wheel Base version (an increase of 10 inches) starts at $385,500. A Drophead Coupe version (Brit for convertible) of the Phantom hit showrooms in September and starts at $407,000 as a 2008 model. Such is the price tag, we presume, for the "best car in the world."

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