THE SURREAL OPULENCE OF A SUPERCAR, THE ROLLS ROYCE WRAITH.

If your ultimate dream is always to own a supercar, but at the same time, wanted to have adrenalin fun with your family of four or your group of four friends. Explore the Rolls Royce Wraith, the boldest, most powerful and stylish Rolls-Royce to date. Rolls Royce taking inspiration from the original 1938 Wraith, the Pinnacle four-seater, the Wraith, is the Ultimate opulent super Grand Turismo.

Rolls Royce which has never attempted to produce a super luxury automobile to challenge the Ferraris and Lamborghinis, made the bold move and it has been extremely well received by the luxury exotic car enthusiasts.

I am in Dubai attending the Blockchain conferences, my devils luck being with me, I got the superb opportunity to review the Wraith.

Wraith has got new admirers and even the Italian supercar owners have added the Wraith to their portfolio of supercars. It is certainly a Rolls Royce, and it does make a impactful statement, a bold dramatic statement, even the Silicon Valley multi-millionaires and billionaires have opted for the Wraith. The much needed powerful supercar required in the Rolls Royce portfolio offering, now has been presented with the 624bhp Wraith.  

The styling based sweeping fastback, a unique design and sexy shape, is a design marvel amongst the luxury exotic sports cars. Wraith’s bold and dramatic design, deeply recessed grille, contemporary two-door design, a raked rear screen, yet subtle but striking athletic silhouettes with animal instincts, has this fastback exuding power with wide rear track, suaveness a beautiful beast, making proud to the Spirit of Ecstasy family.

I got to review the customized Wraith in Rose Quartz with a white hood and white bonnet, this two-tone connoted Wraith’s opulence design and character. The 2,360kg beauty beast, resting on a set of 21-inch five-spoke wheels, adorned with the self-righting RR monogram centers, with option of matching the car body colour, looks super suave.

Based completely on the GHOST platform, the engine is tweaked and up tuned. The Wraith is powered by the most dynamically powerful Rolls-Royce

6.6-litre, twin-turbo V12 engine paired to a satellite-aided 8-speed ZF auto, unleashing 624 bhp RR horses @ 5600 rpm with 820 nm of torque from 1500 – 5500 RPM.

As I get ready to test the beauty beast, the two coach doors, called the suicide doors opens to a heavenly handcrafted ambience. Once seated inside, its heavenly, the interiors with the Ghost grade leather and the beautiful eloquent Canadel Panelling wood, named after the southern French cove, where Sir Henry Royce holidayed. I am driving about in the Downtown area, traffic is medium, it’s a pleasure to drive the Wraith in traffic, and I head to the Palace hotel for a quick business meeting.

So long time ago, Sir Henry Royce and his design/engineering teams spent their winters at the famous cove in the South of France called Canadel; the interiors are inspired from Sir Henry’s favourite holiday place.

The canadel wood interiors with leather and walnut wood inlays, provides a contemporary tangible finish surrounding to most of the seated occupants, not to forget the plush comfortable lamb wool floor mats.

“There’s a sense of effortless grace and elegance, but at the same time something more contemporary and daring.” Giles Taylor- Director of Design.

After the business meeting to discuss real estate investments, I was invited by the French gentleman, Mr. Pascal Dupuis, General Manager of The Address Boulevard Dubai for an eclectic lunch at the Address Restaurant.

So I headed towards the elegant architectural marvel, The Address Boulevard and Mr. Pascal greeted me with my friends and we headed to the Restaurant.

The ultra-luxury of the Rolls Royce is embedded on to the seats, accentuated by the luxurious leather, the stitching, the RR monogram. The Wraith is the penultimate in auto luxury combined with aggressive power.

The canadel interiors have undergone a special new open grain wood treatment, highlighting the specialities of Rolls Royce’s craftsmanship and expertise. Rolls Royce offers infinite degree of customization for the Wraith.

Post lunch, my dear friend – Mr. Tarnpreet, a movie producer based in Dubai arrives in his Phantom; we go for the supercar drive test run of the GBLX68 SUPERCAR SPARR – Dubai Edition, the first of the series in Dubai. While at Sheikh Zayed road, cruising at 167kmph, between the radars, negotiating the traffic, the air suspension is delivering excellent road handling, agility and road holding, rock solid and precision handling and feedback to the steering wheel. For its sheer size,

With a vehicle length of 5285 mm, vehicle width 1947 mm, size does matter and denotes intimidating power; it does 0-60mph in 4.4 seconds and its speed limited to 155mph. The self-adjusting suspension has been improved to minimize body roll while cornering, as the steering weight has been kept heavy at high speeds and light at low speeds, perfect responsiveness, accentuating the Rolls Royce supercar drive and performance, on road or track.

It’s just bloody phenomenal majestic performance, I just don’t believe it, and how Rolls Royce has delivered a supercar performance to such a beauty beast, with a rear wheel drive. It is Rolls Royce engineering and as they say it, waftability, one of Rolls Royce’s dynamic exquisite features, it is sensational. The chassis is modified to handle completely like an exotic sports car, stiffened electronically controlled air suspension for superb road handling and road holding with a sporty feel, delivering the signature Rolls Royce ‘magic carpet ride’, for its sheer size and its weight of approx. 2360 kgs, minimizing body roll and making it responsive while handling, even in panic stops, yet nimble and agile. The steering tweaked provides the perfect and precise feedback, light and easy weight at low speeds or while parking and to a firmer and heavier feel when at high (100kmph+) speeds, while negotiating the S roads.

You can blow your mind listening to music and shatter glasses around you from the 1300-watt Wraith’s eighteen-speaker Bespoke Audio System, comprising two highly powerful bass speakers, seven tweeters and seven mid-range speakers. Two ‘exciter’ speakers hand-fitted in the car’s headlining play a vital role in bringing the sound to the listener at ear-level; ensuring the output perfectly imitates the way music is experienced in a live setting. Microphones constantly monitor ambient and exterior noises and will adjust volume and tone settings automatically to ensure no external agent detracts from the user’s listening pleasure. Whether you choose the ‘studio’, ‘theatre’ or ‘larger than live’ sensation, high-precision Dirac® technology eliminates loud and quiet spots within the car to produce the smoothest, purest acoustics imaginable. No need to attend DJ concerts or the live orchestra.

During night time, a glance at the roof, the Starlight headliner, the ceiling adorned with hand woven 1,340 fibre optic lamps lighted, the “Starlight Headliner” wraps the cabin’s ceiling, portraying the impression of a starry night sky. The Starlight headliner can be sewn into the constellation of your choice. 

Due to the sloping of the roof towards the rear, the roof height lowers for the sporty look; the rear passengers will have less space to be very comfortable.

The Wraith itself is a culmination of opulence, power, and design with style.

Rolls Royce philosophy in terms of enjoying the drive is to provide effortlessness, all relevant and required technologies assisting the driver when required, are available, a very relaxed feeling drive. All the featured technologies like the head-up display, adaptive headlights, camera system for 360 deg view, voice activation commands – with a one-touch call button located on the steering wheel, for reaching the destination – the navigation menu & route assistance can be directed via a voice command, absolutely no manual input required.

My friend and I did land up playing golf at the Emirates Golf Club. So after playing golf, the Wraith’s keyless opening boot makes it very convenient to store the golf set in the boot, and a huge boot it is.

With sophisticated technology features, which revolve around the driver and passengers, Rolls Royce has taken the luxurious comfort to a new level. The key features of the Driver’s Assistance Systems One package are automatic high beams, head-up display and lane departure warning. One of the key feature of the Wraith is the Satellite Aided Transmission, while analyzing satellite data about the road ahead to your destination, the Wraith pre-selects the correct gear for the terrain, intelligent gear ratio chosen based on the road conditions and other data for a smoother drive. Technology is very latest; a 10.25-inch high-definition dashboard screen controlled by an iDrive glass knob on the center console and embedded is the Spirit of Ecstasy figurine in the glass knob. The other key features are adaptive headlights, keyless-opening trunk, active cruise control, 360-degree surround view camera, the Advanced Crash Management system and load more.

The Spirit of Ecstasy rotary controller allows navigation through on-screen functions with the touch pad, or simply draws the letters onto the pad by hand rather than by scrolling through the characters on-screen.

The Wraith is all about surrealism, in a way complementing the meaning of Wraith, a ghostlike force, often I refer to it as, when the Wraith has sped by, one notices the ghostlike force. Now you see it, now you don’t!! The Wraith has a certain gravitas, made with the driver in mind.

Rolls Royce is the world’s pinnacle of opulence and for the esoteric, deeply and heartily reflecting on the super fine tastes and lifestyles of a connoisseur. The world does freeze, when a Wraith appears, intimidating, do you feel the chill up the spine.

“We launch the ultimate gentlemen’s gran turismo, a car that embodies the spirit of Charles Stewart Rolls,” said Torsten Muller-Otvos, CEO, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. “The most powerful Rolls-Royce in history, Wraith promises the sense of adventure and speed that drove our founding forefather. But of course, Wraith’s starting point is luxury, refinement and quality – traits that remain as important to Rolls-Royce customers today as they were more than a century ago.”

Rolls-Royce co-founder Sir Henry Royce once said “Take the best that exists and make it better; when it does not exist, design it.” Rolls Royce, has certainly done so for the Wraith, created a new luxury exotic breed in the Rolls Royce portfolio and still retained the principles of the Rolls Royce cars for its hand craftsmanship, engineering, luxury and performance.

As Mr. Torsten Müller-Ötvös, CEO Rolls-Royce Motor Cars expresses his view on the Wraith, “the ultimate gentlemen’s gran turismo.”

The Wraith is the wakeup call for the luxury and exotic cars, Italian or British marque, be it Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, etc, the Wraith is a wicked suave beast.

Wafting only, No Drifting.

“So the Wraith is the ultimate multi-millionaires super luxe gran turismo”. GB.

NOSTALGIA SERIES. THE ROLLS ROYCE WRAITH WAS REVIEWED IN 1Q 2018.