Rolls-Royce Motor Cars PressClub · Article.
ROLLS-ROYCE GHOST: A SYMBOL OF ENDLESS PURE EXPRESSION
14.12.2023 Press Kit
This Press Kit provides an overview of the current Ghost model family, its design philosophy and position within the Rolls-Royce product portfolio. The original launch release for Ghost is available on PressClub, where you can also find information about previous generations, variants and models, including Ghost Extended and Black Badge Ghost.
Press Contact.
Georgina Cox
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars
Tel: +44 (0) 7815 370 878
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Author.
Georgina Cox
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars
This Press Kit provides an overview of the current Ghost model
family, its design philosophy and position within the Rolls-Royce
product portfolio. The original launch release for
Ghost
is available on PressClub, where you can also find
information about previous generations, variants and models,
including
Ghost Extended
and
Black
Badge Ghost
.
BACKGROUND
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars launched the first Ghost in
2009 at the Frankfurt Motor Show. More compact than the marque’s
pinnacle product, Phantom, it was created for a new group of clients
who desired a more modest, minimalist expression of Rolls-Royce
perfection in design, engineering and craftsmanship. The Ghost
Extended variant followed in 2011. An updated Series II Ghost was
unveiled at the 2014 Geneva Motor Show, with the first Black Badge
Ghost making its debut two years later.
Over the course of its 10-year lifecycle, the first-generation
Ghost became the most successful product in the company’s history,
enabling Rolls-Royce to scale up production, invest in its
capabilities and establish itself as a truly global luxury brand.
Production ended in 2019, an event commemorated in the Ghost Zenith Collection.
The present Ghost, built on the same Architecture of Luxury
spaceframe as Phantom, Cullinan and Spectre, was launched in 2020: the
line-up also includes Ghost Extended and Black Badge Ghost, launched
in 2021.
GHOST PHILOSOPHY AND POSITIONING
Ghost is a study in reduction, minimalism and
simplicity. Its purity provides the ideal blank canvas for Bespoke
commissions, with clients able to exercise their ambitious creativity
and express their personal tastes almost entirely free of technical
and aesthetic constraints.
That purity presents possibility. It creates potential as
boundless as the owner’s imagination, emboldening them to bring
colour, energy and vibrancy to their commission and to allow beautiful
materials, expert craftsmanship and exquisite details speak for
themselves, subtle and unadorned.
A NEW APPROACH TO LUXURY
Ghost’s design reflects a marked shift in clients’
attitudes to luxury that has occurred since its first incarnation.
Today’s luxury consumers consciously reject extravagance and
ostentation: their tastes are defined by reduction, simplicity and
substance, and the intelligent, considered selection and unobtrusive
application of exceptional materials and craftsmanship. Every element
of Ghost therefore has relevance, purpose and integrity. This
philosophy is the antithesis of ‘premium mediocrity’, a term coined by
the fashion industry for otherwise unremarkable products that rely on
contrivance, superficial details and meaningless aesthetic artifice to
create an illusion of luxury.
Ghost is also designed for a younger client cohort, often
self-made and invariably self-confident and self-reliant, who tend to
be self-drivers by default, and thus take a keen interest in their
motor car’s driving experience and dynamics.
THE CURRENT GHOST MODEL
Ghost is perfect in its simplicity; but creating this
purity of expression was one of the marque’s greatest-ever technical
challenges. It incorporates state-of-the-art equipment and functions including:
- LED and laser headlights with more than 600m of illuminated range, plus vision assist
- Alertness assistant
- Four-camera system with panoramic view, all-round visibility and helicopter view
- Active cruise control
- Collision, cross-traffic, lane departure and lane change warnings
- Industry-leading 7x3 high-resolution head-up display (HUD)
- On-board Wi-Fi hotspot
- Self-park system
- Bespoke navigation and entertainment systems.
ENGINEERING
Proprietary Architecture of Luxury
Ghost is built on the marque’s proprietary
Architecture of Luxury spaceframe, as used in its flagship Phantom,
Cullinan SUV and all-electric Spectre. The aluminium spaceframe’s
flexibility and scalability creates an acoustically superior, highly
rigid and dynamic platform, based around four fixed points, one at
each corner of the motor car. The moveable aluminium bulkhead, floor,
crossmembers and sill panels are positioned specifically to make Ghost
as enjoyable to drive as it is to be driven in. Pushing two of the
cast suspension mounting assemblies to the very front and placing the
6.75-litre V12 behind the front axle, gives an optimum 50/50 weight distribution.
Ghost has all-wheel drive, all-wheel steering and a Planar
Suspension System specifically designed to enhance the marque’s
hallmark ‘magic carpet ride’.
All-aluminium bodyshell
Ghost’s metal superstructure is 100% aluminium,
rendered as one clean, expansive piece, flowing seamlessly from the
A-pillar, over the roof and down to the rear of the motor car. To
eliminate shut lines and body seams, four craftspeople hand-weld the
body together simultaneously; Ghost is also fitted with 100%
aluminium, laser-welded doors. As well as reducing the motor car’s
overall weight, aluminium offers a remarkable 40,000Nm/deg stiffness,
and a lower acoustic impedance than steel, improving cabin ambience.
6.75-Litre Twin-Turbocharged V12
Ghost’s bespoke V12 engine ensures dynamic
performance, delivering 563bhp/420kW and 850Nm/627lb ft of torque,
with maximum torque available from 1600rpm – just 600rpm above
tick-over. The air intake system incorporates large ports designed to
reduce engine noise in the interior.
Planar Suspension System
The Planar Suspension System is the result of 10
collective years of testing and development, creating a sense of
‘flight on land’ never achieved in a motor car before. Created through
physical engineering developments, and sophisticated scanning and
software technology, it incorporates a world-first Upper Wishbone
Damper unit, reserved exclusively for Rolls-Royce and never previously
applied in a production motor car. Located above the front suspension
assembly, this assists the continuously variable, electronically
controlled shock absorbers and self-levelling high-volume air strut
assemblies, creating a stable, effortless ride.
The marque’s Flagbearer system uses cameras to read the road
ahead and adjust the suspension proactively rather than reactively at
up to 100km/h. This allows Ghost to anticipate and react to the most
demanding road surfaces. It operates in concert with the Satellite
Aided Transmission system, which draws GPS data to pre-select the
optimum gear for upcoming corners, all managed by the planar software system.
The five-link rear axle benefits from self-levelling high-volume
air suspension technology and rear-wheel steering.
Effortless Doors
Rolls-Royce clients have enjoyed self-closing doors
since the first Goodwood Phantom. In Ghost, clients open the rear door
with one pull of the interior handle, then allow it to return to its
resting position while they check for potential hazards. They then
pull and hold it for full power assistance on opening. Once the door
is opened sufficiently, they simply release the handle, which engages
a door brake. The door can be closed completely automatically at the
push of a button on the exterior handle.
If clients prefer to close the door manually, the operation is
power assisted. On-board longitudinal and transverse sensors, as well
as G-force sensors fitted to each door, allow the same speed of
operation regardless of hill or driveway angles.
Micro-Environment Purification System (MEPS)
Ghost benefits from a Micro-Environment Purification
System (MEPS), incorporating a full suite of hardware and software.
They include highly sensitive Impurity Detection Sensors that
automatically switch fresh air intakes to Recirculation Mode if
unacceptable levels of airborne contaminants are present. This
channels all cabin air through a nanofleece filter, which is capable
of removing nearly all ultra-fine particles from the Rolls-Royce’s
micro-environment in less than two minutes.
ACOUSTICS
Ghost applies the marque’s Formula for Serenity,
designed to produce a calm, serene and near-noiseless interior environment.
The first element of this formula is the Architecture of Luxury.
Its aluminium construction has a higher acoustic impedance than steel,
and comprises complex forms, rather than flat, resonant surfaces. The
bulkhead and floor sections are double-skinned and filled with
composite damping felts to reduce road noise intrusion. In total,
Ghost incorporates 100kg of acoustic material in the doors, roof,
between the double-glazed windows, inside the tyres and throughout the
underpinning architecture.
During development, every component was interrogated and, where
necessary, re-engineered to eliminate unacceptable noise. For example,
the inside of the air conditioning ducting is polished to reduce wind
noise; the diameter of the prop shaft was adjusted and its rigidity
increased to improve acoustics.
The development process also revealed that a completely silent
interior is actually rather disorienting for occupants. Ghost
therefore exhibits a ‘whisper’ – a soft undertone experienced as a
single, subtle note. This is achieved by tuning each component so it
shares a common resonant frequency. Again, this requires specific
engineering solutions, such as damping units in the seat frames, and
ports under the rear parcel shelf that allow low-frequency sounds
produced in the 507-litre boot cavity at motorway speed to escape.
EXTERIOR
Ghost is defined by minimalism and purity,
underpinned by great substance. Sharp bow lines intersect with an
angular light signature, creating an assertive yet beautiful front
end. Twenty LEDS set under the top of the radiator grille subtly
illuminate the vanes: the backs of the vanes are brushed, making them
less reflective and creating a restrained glow effect. The Spirit of
Ecstasy is not surrounded by panel lines but rather stands within her
own unbroken ‘lake’.
The hand-welded aluminium body appears as one fluid whole,
uninterrupted by shut lines, with a single straight stroke in the
flanks emphasising the motor car’s length. The lower ‘waft line’
borrows from boat design and uses reflection to lighten the surfacing
and create a pure sense of motion. The subtly arched roof line and
rear end follow this sense of movement and resolve in a taper. The
near-square rear light graphic, an established tenet of contemporary
Rolls-Royce design, has a slight forward tilt and appears as an
‘island’ within the painted surface.
In the deliberately neutral upper section, the windows are
equally proportioned, balancing Ghost as both a driver-oriented and
chauffeur-driven car.
INTERIOR
The interior aesthetic pursues the same minimalist
principles as the exterior. Free of busy details and superficial
adornment, it creates a relaxing refuge and maximises the impact of
Bespoke colour personalisation.
Producing an environment defined by reduction, simplicity and
elegance is an extremely complex endeavour, since even the very finest
materials will, when left unembellished, invite close scrutiny. The
leather used in each of Ghost’s 338 individual panels, however small
and unobtrusive, is subject to the automotive industry’s most
exhaustive quality control checks: the stitching is minimal and forms
long, perfectly straight lines, again inviting minute inspection.
Ghost features specially developed wood veneers in open-pore finish,
which showcase the materials in their naked form. Obsidian Ayous is
inspired by the rich mix of colours found in igneous rock, while Dark
Amber introduces subtle glamour with fine aluminium particles
integrated into the dark wood. The wood is left exposed as long,
single-veneer leaves, punctuated only by cold-to-the-touch solid metal
air vents.
BESPOKE FEATURES
Illuminated Fascia
Ghost’s Illuminated Fascia subtly echoes the
Starlight Headliner, which itself has become as much a part of
Rolls-Royce iconography as the Spirit of Ecstasy, Pantheon Grille and
‘Double R’ monogram.
Developed over two years and more than 10,000 collective hours, the
fascia includes an ethereal glowing Ghost nameplate surrounded by more
than 850 ‘stars’. The illumination comes from 152 LEDs mounted above
and beneath the fascia, each meticulously colour-matched to the clock
and instrument dial lighting. The Ghost wordmark is lit by a 2mm thick
light guide, featuring more than 90,000 laser-etched dots across the
surface. This not only disperses the light evenly but creates a
twinkling effect as the eye moves across the fascia.
Located on the passenger side of the dashboard, the
constellation and wordmark are completely invisible when the interior
lights are not in operation. This is achieved using three layers of
composite materials. The first, a piano-black substrate, is
laser-etched to allow light to shine through the wordmark and star
cluster. This is overlaid with a layer of dark-tinted lacquer, hiding
the lettering when not in use. Finally, the fascia is sealed with a
layer of subtly tinted lacquer before being hand polished to achieve a
perfectly uniform, 0.5mm thick high-gloss finish, matching other
high-gloss accents incorporated into the interior.
Bespoke Audio
As well as creating a serene internal environment,
Rolls-Royce’s pursuit of acoustic perfection creates a magnificent
sound stage for Ghost’s Bespoke Audio system, which is engineered into
the motor car’s very fabric. A resonance chamber into the body’s sill
section essentially transforms the motor car into a subwoofer: exciter
speakers bonded to the Starlight Headliner turn the ceiling into a
single large speaker. A powerful 1300W amplifier drives 18 individual
loudspeakers: state-of-the-art optimisation technology and
high-precision magnesium-ceramic compound cones provide outstanding
frequency response. Two active microphones detect anomalous
frequencies, then trigger the amplifiers to counteract them, ensuing a
pure and perfectly balanced listening experience.
PERFECTION, EVOLVED
The only components in the current Ghost model to be
carried over from its predecessor are the Spirit of Ecstasy mascot and
the beloved umbrellas concealed in the doors: everything else was
designed, crafted and engineered from the ground up. It distils the
Rolls-Royce brand values into a beautiful, minimalist, yet highly
complex product that is perfectly in harmony with clients’ evolving
needs, and precisely in tune with the times.
CO2 EMISSIONS & CONSUMPTION.
Ghost: NEDCcorr (combined) CO2 emission: 343 g/km; Fuel consumption: 18.8 mpg / 15.0 l/100km. WLTP (combined) CO2 emission: 347-359 g/km; Fuel consumption: 17.9-18.6 mpg / 15.2-15.8 l/100km. Ghost Extended: NEDCcorr (combined) CO2 emission: 343 g/km; Fuel consumption: 18.8 mpg / 15.0 l/100km. WLTP (combined): CO2 emission: 348-359 g/km; Fuel consumption: 18-18.5 mpg / 15.3-15.7 l/100km. Black Badge Ghost: NEDCcorr (combined) CO2 emission: 359 g/km; Fuel consumption: 15.8 mpg / 18.0 l/100km. WLTP (combined) CO2 emission: 359 g/km; Fuel consumption: 17.9 mpg / 15.8 l/100km. Further information: https://bit.ly/3XtQW7q