Silence Please
Talk to anyone at Rolls associated with Phantom VIII, and you’ll hear the same key items about the car mentioned with glowing pride. Primary among them is the silence of its ride. According to Rolls, it is 10 percent quieter at 60 mph than the previous Phantom. This comes thanks to sound-absorbing materials layered inside the headliner, trunk, and doors; massive cast aluminum joints in the body of the car, which cut noise; double skin alloy laid on areas within the floor and bulkhead of the frame of the car; and special “silent-seal” tires that have foam inside to minimize road noise.

It’s also due to a new—as opposed to simply updated or reconfigured—engine. Rolls gave Phantom VIII a 6.75-liter, V12 engine turbocharged to 563bhp. (This is a change from the previous naturally aspirated, 453hp V12 engine used in Phantom VII.) The turbo enables low-end power at lower revs, which works wonders to ensure silence at speed.The car tops out at 155 mph, and it’ll hit 60 mph in 5.3 seconds. This, significantly, is far faster than, say, those smaller racecar-light Lancias that dominated the rally-cross track for decades.

The effect is unearthly once you close the doors—everything outside the car goes immediately mute. Reclining last month in the back of the Phantom VIII was like lounging in a cocoon. I’ve been in sound studios that felt louder; you could easily record a Rick Ross album in there.

At any rate, I’d like to hear the difference on the road. Rolls-Royce, alas, hasn’t yet permitted press drives, but initial results of this much-ballyhooed chamber are positive, very positive.

Gallery Staging
Another point of immense—and justified—pride from the Rolls-Royce contingent is the “gallery” installed in the dashboard.

Let me explain. Rolls says that many of its buyers are collectors of fine mechanical watches, figurines, jewelry, and other trinkets worth far more than their size might suggest. (After visiting the factory in Goodwood one year, I know this to be true—the bespoke cars I saw being built there include storage for some of the most eccentric things, such as cabinets for duck collections.) So it follows that perhaps these individuals would like to be able to appreciate some of their collections outside the home. Even on the road, as it were.

Enter Phantom VIII, with a glass case installed in the dashboard if the buyer so wishes. Anyone who buys one can install whatever he or she wants inside along the dash, behind the glass. It’s like a viewing gallery.

“Every one of our customers—each a connoisseur of luxury in the extreme—[was] asking for something more individual to them, not less,” said Müller-Ötvös. “We were adamant that that was what they should have.”

The gallery does come with one permanent installation: an analogue clock that will be “the loudest sound you can hear in a Rolls-Royce,” one presser bragged. Giles Taylor, the director of design for Rolls-Royce, told me the glass is treated so that it is not a safety hazard in the event of a crash. One would hope.

And storage in general is ample. “Trunk space was something which was criticized in the Phantom VII,” said Müller-Ötvös. “We said OK, understood. We do it,” and it is now “massively more spacious” in the new model.