The Wraith is wrapped in extreme opulence, built and designed especially for the kind of people blessed with a lot of money who can buy love and happiness.
Nothing will ever get you ready for an experience to drive—or even play around with—a car bearing the Spirit of Ecstacy emblem.
Nothing.
It’s all about an experience of a lifetime when the opportunity comes to fly all the way to Phoenix, Arizona, to drive the Wraith, the newest Rolls-Royce toy available for the über-rich. No way can you pass up a chance like this because it hardly comes, especially to ordinary people.
For this test ride, the $500,000 Phantom was to be compared to its younger sibling, the Wraith.
This story about the most powerful and technologically advanced Rolls-Royce in history can’t start, of course, without the main issue—which is money.
The price tag from its origin? $360,000 or roughly P16 million. The local dealer here—Willy Tee Ten of Rolls-Royce Cars Manila—would be more than happy to let it go for a little more of that amount for a markup including options and taxes.
Right off the bat, we say it’s money good enough to buy a condominium unit, a couple of SUVs and maybe a few country club memberships.
Total domination
The author is briefed on the Wraith’s cockpit features.
But pardon the discrimination, the Wraith is total domination, plain and simple. It’s not for people who are just starting to build their dreams or expand their investment portfolio. Simply said, it’s for people who don’t really care about tomorrow because even the future has been bought.
The Wraith is wrapped in extreme opulence, built and designed especially for the kind of people blessed with a lot of money who can buy love and happiness. If ever, it becomes just a new addition to a multimillionaire’s already cramped garage filled with supercars and classics that will hardly cause a dent in his or her fat bank account.
The reality is that Rolls-Royce customers do not even go to showrooms, haggle for a good price with the sales agents and ask what color is readily available. This is just way below their standards.
Cruising down the Arizona highway
Most of them fly to the Goodwood manufacturing hub in England and get on at the table with Rolls-Royce engineers for the intricacies of their car, especially on the color combinations.
It’s technically called a bespoke process, but the truth is, it’s more about the class that a Rolls-Royce ownership requires.
It won’t take a lot of time before the final quotation reaches the doorsteps of the buyer’s mansion or pops out of his e-mail. The dream car is not going to be on a shipped cargo because time is of the essence: It will have its own business-class plane ticket. When the delivery is completed, imagine the owner looking up the sky, thanking the high heavens for making him different from the rest of mankind. Again.
Luxury spelled so easily
The Wraith coupe is designed for those who want to drive, not be driven.
Hopping into a Wraith, the difference on luxury can be spelled yet so easily. Its two massive doors are electronically operated through a button on the dash. As the door swings open, you are led into a cockpit of pure imagination. There is solid and pure craftsmanship that makes you feel every cent of the six-digit figure that you paid was worth it—from the thick leather seats and wood-paneled doors to the wood-paneled dash. And we’re not even talking about the instrument and control panels yet.
So on a sun-blessed day in upscale Phoenix, we drove off from the highly exclusive The Phoenician Resort to the rural desert roads eager to discover the true qualities of the Wraith. By the time we could get deep into that, however, we had already been overwhelmed by the senseless joy of just getting behind the wheel of what is probably going to be one of the world’s most coveted automobiles.
This was supposed to be a coupe powered by a 6.6-liter twin-turbocharged V12 engine delivering 624 horsepower, but inside, there was no evidence of it. There was just complete funeral silence in the cabin unless, of course, you let the entertainment system blow off your eardrums. We whizzed by one giant cactus after another in the snaking roads of the desert, amazed by the quietness that the vibration-free engine offered.
‘We whizzed by one giant cactus after another weird-looking cactus in the snaking roads of the desert amazed by the quietness that the vibration-free engine offers’ PHOTO BY JONG ARCANO
We seriously thought that we could take the ladylove on a joy ride across a seemingly infinite highway exchanging pleasantries, hardly feeling that we were inside a car but getting the same magical feeling of sitting by the edge of the mountain gazing at the stars.
In fact, Rolls-Royce can have this moment tailor-fit for a willing-to-wait-and-pay customer. They have a package with the Starlight-perforated leather headliner with 1,340 hand-sewn fiber-optic lights that, indeed, will take a couple riding the Wraith to the Neverland they’ve always thought never existed.
This new strategy seems to be meant to entice a new breed of Rolls-Royce owners, far different from the suited business tycoons who just wouldn’t have the time to explore the level of happiness that a happy-go-lucky soul who most likely would be an offspring, desires.
The Wraith by design should bring to Rolls-Royce customers something they’ve never seen before.
In the words of Torsten Müller-Ötvös, the CEO of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the Wraith is “the ultimate gentleman’s gran turismo.”
Some driving fun (the Wraith hurtles to 96 kph in 4.4 seconds with a top speed of 249.45 kph) has been added to a Rolls, and that’s what the effervescence of youth is supposed to be.
In this material world where young millionaires and billionaires are fast emerging, to have a Rolls-Royce now is to rock and roll.
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