Time machine: Tripping in the Rolls-Royce Phantom Coupe

Written by nitram on August 8, 2008

SPECS
ON SALE: November
BASE PRICE: $405,000
DRIVETRAIN: 6.7-liter, 453-hp, 531-lb-ft V12; RWD, six-speed automatic
CURB WEIGHT: 5,776 lb
0-60 MPH: 5.6 sec (mfr)
FUEL ECONOMY (EPA): 13 mpg (est)

What do I know about Rolls-Royce? I am landing at Heathrow to be whisked southward for a rendezvous with the new coupe version of the Phantom. That meeting will be effected in Goodwood, where the Rolls works lie hard by the old racing circuit (memories there), and thence to Folkestone and a Channel crossing, this time under it, and on to Reims in France (the memories roll in like clouds on a Weather Channel simulation). Finally, we’ll travel to Switzerland and Geneva’s airport. A few days of driving in upscale pretense. We are pros; do not try this at home.

Properly, one doesn’t say Rolls; one says Royce. I am not proper. Germany’s BMW now owns RR, arguably the most British of automotive symbols–except maybe for Mini, which BMW also owns. The Bavarians have done quite well husbanding the Mini myth, which I gather is the intention with this RR.

The ride to Goodwood is in A 7-series Bimmer. I loll in back and muse on the differences between English roadways now and when I was living there and driving in rallies. Same wonderful, frantic zippiness yet held-breath patience when congestion befalls the late-afternoon relocation.

Back then, Minis prevailed. Now, mostly European and Japanese ware. All bigger.

A Goodwood trip in a Mini leaps to mind, but that one was returning to London after a Grand Prix. In the back seat, my expert map-reading friend Noel Harrison; next to me, his friend actor James Coburn.

Noel had learned maps in the military, and the Brits have great, detailed maps. Noel might say, “In a half-mile, there’s a church on the left with a turn just by. Take it!” And thus we’d cut from main road to main road on tiny lanes, many gated, through flocks of squawking geese and often gaping farmers. We evaded the bumper-jammed traffic and were supping before some race-goers had cleared the paddock.

As for the race, we saw Masten Gregory bail out of a Cooper, sort of a signature ploy of his when his car was destined to foreshortening against a barrier. Actually, at Goodwood, he just made himself loose in the seat as the car slithered rapidly across an expanse of sopping greensward. When it crumpled against a berm, Masten left it, performing a graceful loop and landing unharmed. I would give him an eight, maybe less: Air was visible between the legs.

The next morning, the Rolls-Royce plant tour starts. We see how the Rolls paint is rubbed out and rubbed out. How the wood for the dash, perhaps exotic, is peeled from logs and then the sheets–many of them–are laminated with equally thin aluminum sheets and pressed into shapes. I’m amazed and appalled. I quit liking shiny wood in cars a decade ago. Matte, and only here and there, please.

We are told that “bespoke” is an idea that drives Rolls. Clients come to view choices, mull possibilities, select and then await the hand-finished vehicle. The customer is the decider, we hear, though hardly in those words. RR has sent off cars with pale green and mauve interiors. Or did he say pink? Any leather, any color, any wood that can be worked. No, they do nothing to protect the deciders from themselves, except to disallow endangered species.

Our Phantom coupes await outside. They appear to be of normal size until it takes longer to walk to them than expected. They are a tad smaller than a Suburban with four seats and two doors. The doors are hinged at the rear, something that seems to be clear only when you whisper, “Suicide doors.”

We suicide our way into a green/gray coupe with unfortunate, to me, bespokeness on the dash: zebrano wood, golden but broadly striped like the eponymous animal. Lots of space. Headroom for crown wearers. But I find the seat skimpy on thigh support when I’m driving, OK when just riding. I’m numbed by the expanse of lustrous wood.

Herewith general facts: We are in a coupe (on the “wrong” side of the road) with a lovely-sounding V12 RR engine. It produces 453 hp and 531 lb-ft of torque. Impressive numbers. It needs every bit of them to move the three-ton, aluminum-framed, nearly 18-foot-long mass. They say the power can get that mass to 60 mph in less than six seconds. But it’s like perceiving the speed of an aircraft carrier.

We are heading to a train and will be hauled through the Channel tunnel, a.k.a. the Chunnel. This remarkable, useful piece of engineering opened in 1994.

We drive onto an open rail car and turn into a closed one connected to another. It resembles, in this loading mode, the amber-glowing central aisle of a cathedral. The space is tall, but width is only a car plus car-side walkways. Get-through space is left between the nose-to-tail automobiles. About four fit in each railroad car. Passengers can stay in their cars, gather on the walkways or push through the between-car pedestrian doors to the restrooms in the first car and the last.

The train is moving. Its windows are suddenly dark. Any sense of motion is more like a freight elevator that quivers now and then. We chat and move about. The windows are suddenly light. We are in Calais. How long? Thirty, 35 minutes? The trip is 31 miles long.

We drive off–straight forward through the amber-lighted cathedral until we come to open space and connection to quai-side.

I gave up sea-top ferries when I discovered Silver City, a mid-century phenomenon that flew cars over the Channel. The people sat in the 15 lap-belted seats that ran in a few rows athwart the plane–a Bristol Freighter, I think. Wide things. I’m not sure how many cars fit, but there was usually even last-minute room for a Mini. It fit neatly crosswise in the nose.

I remember a car-carrying flight to Rotterdam when I was taking Mama to Moscow in the Mini (alliteration gets to me). I sat in one of those seats, gazing at my red, black-topped Mini some 20 feet away. The ultimate carry-on.

We take a cut across Northern France. Place names are familiar from rally route books or World War histories. We stop for a delightful lunch; we are in France. But my thoughts are on a waypoint before our evening stop: Reims, of champagne fame and the venue for Grands Prix of old. I’ve seen pictures of the deterioration of the grandstand and pits, with mention of restoration efforts. I’m eager to see for myself.

We roll gently through the lovely French countryside, which has been marched across in anger for centuries. No scars visible. The ride is lulling. I remark that maybe I enjoy riding in this car more than driving it. I’m reminded of the line, “It is the Rolls-Royce Owners’ Club but the Bentley Drivers’ Club.”

We reach the old course outside Reims. Much is as I remember. An everyday road whizzing with cars runs between the graying, decaying grandstand and the squared pit boxes. The grandstand has been allowed its age with time-ghosted words on it. The pits, however, are merry-go-round bright. Perhaps well-meaning souls have newly painted the pits and the old words. All is starkly incongruent, and the dignified patina of age is gone. Restoration versus preservation.

Nearly 50 years ago to the day, I was in this place, camera in hand, for the 1958 Grand Prix of France. This was the last Grand Prix of Juan Manuel Fangio, five-time world champion. And the first Grand Prix of Phil Hill, champion-to-be three seasons downstream.

I photographed the two together, each looking as if he stared into a private hell. Fangio’s Maser was bothersome. The clutch pedal had broken in practice. He came in and silently handed it to a mechanic. A thought bubble in the photo might read, “I don’t need this!” And before the race, he announced that it would be his last.

Phil was, in his own way, contemplating the end of a career hardly begun. His record in sports cars was amazing, but Ferrari was loath to offer him a Formula One ride. Just before Reims, he had presented Ferrari with its first win at Le Mans. The day after, a group of us was having tea in the Hotel Paris, urging Phil to stand firm. Jo Bonnier offered him his own F1 Maserati for Reims. “Do it!” Phil agreed.

Just before I took the Reims picture, Romolo Tavoni, Ferrari’s team manager, pulled Phil aside and told him that if he drove that Maserati, he’d never drive another Ferrari. Period. But Phil wouldn’t go back on his word to Jo. He drove. He was seventh, the best of the private Maseratis. He was back with Ferrari the next week.

The last day’s drive from France to near Geneva’s airport gets hillier and more involving. I’m driving when we hit the Alpine pass, which squirms in utter joy. The coupe is well balanced, rigid of body, with good steering feel and sense of center. I like following a well-driven Phantom sedan in the tight rally mode. But I don’t like the coupe’s body roll. It’s not the amount of roll but the kind; it rolls side to side instead of rear wheels to rear wheels.

Whom is this car for? This is what I gather: The Phantom coupe is for an owner who has cars “as he has jackets.” He also has Ferrari, Porsche, Lambo, Bugatti–maybe all. He wears the Rolls-Royce when he picks up, say, guests for dinner. The Rolls symbolizes instantly his ease with his own success, his desire to honor his guests with something universally understood. He has chosen his jacket casually but impeccably. He doesn’t even need a tie.

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