2025 Rolls-Royce Black Badge Ghost | British review

But a Rolls-Royce feels like the exception to so many rules, and when an engine is this smooth and quiet, who needs electric boosters? Not least when the customer base is hardly knocking on the door of the Goodwood factory demanding lower operating costs or more efficient powertrains.

This Black Badge Ghost Series II – to give it the full, impressive billing – indeed goes the other way by applying a higher list price and a good chunk of extra power to a car that also barely needed to swell. For example, the £300,000(ish) 571bhp ‘base’ Ghost becomes the £350,000(ish) 600bhp Black Badge Ghost.

Yes, that’s the right way. Black Badge is in fact an entire sub-brand, the company’s “disruptive alter ego,” in its own words. It accounts for a quarter of Rolls sales these days, and unlike the countless Black Editions elsewhere on the market, it’s more than just a design makeover. While there have of course been advances on that front too, with a bolder grille treatment up front and darker chrome (or ‘noir effect’) almost everywhere else, the Spirit of Ecstasy is the most dramatic recipient.

The Ghost already looked quite sleek and compact next to the Phantom and Cullinan, and the BB makeover suits it well. The Noir effect extends inwards too, with a new ‘technical carbon’ finish that weaves carbon fiber and wood together, pressure-cures them at 100 degrees and gives a look that’s far more stylish than carbon makeovers elsewhere. Although you can always go further on the aftermarket…

Underneath the skin, the brake pedal travel has been reduced and the bite point increased – ‘a direct response to customer demand for a unique, powerful expression of the Rolls-Royce brand’ – while the old-school gear lever now features an amusingly subtle ‘Low’ button, which sharpens the eight-speed automatic’s mapping, halves shift times and ‘releases a subtler, louder sound from the car’s exhaust system’. You really won’t find phraseology like this anywhere else.

There are still no paddles – or even manual controls at all – over the transmission, and what Rolls interprets as a louder soundtrack seems negligible to anyone familiar with the more braying crowd of sports sedans out there. This engine remains whisper quiet until really unleashed, at which point a delightful but always polite 12-cylinder growl sounds to guide your slightly ungodly catapult forward, the Flying Lady almost looking at the clouds as the bow rises.

The engine remains a 6.75-liter twin-turbo V12 shared with the Phantom, an engine that risks making a mockery of Rolls’ commitment to battery power when it’s so damn quiet. There is little difference in the cabin atmosphere when stationary or extinguished. Without hybrid helpers, claimed CO2 emissions are 18.3mpg and 348g/km, although hundreds of miles of driving without a single thought for efficiency got us a score of 20.3mpg.

And the Black Badge actually do encourage you to stick with it. Although the Ghost was already an impossibly silent pod to float around ethereally in, it also enjoys being a villain. The steering is alert, but stops as soon as there is a tangible dialogue with your hands. But even with so many layers of purpose between you and the road surface, a bond needs to be forged here. It’s a car you can drive along with confidence and enjoy how high the power reserve percentage readout stays even when you hide it.

The adaptive air suspension responds to camera images of the road ahead and is simply never confused, allowing you to pick up (and maintain) speed at least as easily as a plug-in M5 or AMG that feels hampered by its own mass. The Ghost’s width and the inevitably limited control of its brakes are the biggest barriers to how fast you go.

The damping parameters tighten up in ‘Low’, but it’s not a night and day shift. Likewise, you never really feel the active four-wheel drive or four-wheel steering being in play, so carefully are they woven into the rest of the BB’s character. It’s only when I watch Nic C make a tight maneuver for photos that there’s an explicit demonstration of the rear wheels turning at an opposite angle to the front.

Of course, it will never take the form of an immaturely controlled M or AMG, even though there is an option to switch off the DSC, buried deep in the touchscreen. This isn’t a car that bubbles away in your palms and it’s hard not to long for a real tachometer, a real sports mode or the chance for some manual encouragement from the gearbox. But drive the car with enough positivity and it will all seem frivolous anyway. I have to respect Rolls for sticking to his guns and also doing a sports sedan in his own way…

Many car manufacturers claim to be unique; that their car has unparalleled performance, luxury or design chutzpah. But a Rolls-Royce always feels unmistakably that way, and the fact that it looks so much like the Dawn, Wraith and Specter that have completed the list of cars I’ve driven over the past decade is actually its USP, and no reason to question Rolls’ progress.

Our photoshoot, if Oli B’s beautiful photos don’t tell, took place in the eye of a wet, windy storm hitting South Wales. Rarely has it seemed less of a problem, the Ghost’s sheer weight – a car better insulated than my house – leaving the interior a quiet sanctuary. Even if you close the enormous doors by pulling a switch for a long time, you prevent your arm from being pulled out of its socket by a sudden gust of wind. And yes, the interior avoids screens where possible and provides a decadent safe space for good switchgear. It is celebrated rather than shunned; the metal ventilation openings and the rolling dials for temperature control are a special highlight.

Of course, a ‘normal’ Ghost also has all that, and it won’t be much slower or less agile on a winding stretch of road. But Rolls doesn’t quote prices (other than declaring a unique commission to the buyer for each car), and if you’ve pushed aside the utterly fantastic Flying Spur to end up this far up the food chain, every ounce of economy has already disappeared from your criteria. Checking the box will make your Ghost a Black license plate Ghost is certainly child’s play for anyone with even the slightest interest in piloting the thing instead of being coddled in the back.

Engine: 6749cc V12, twin turbo
Transfer: 8-speed automatic transmission, four-wheel drive
Power (hp): 600 at 5,250 rpm
Torque (lb⋅ft): 664 Nm at 1,700 rpm
0-100 km/h: 4.7 seconds
Top speed: 250 km/h (electronically limited)
Weight: 2,507 kg
CO2: 348 g/km
MPG: 18.3
Price: £350,000 (estimate)