GHOST STORY

After 11 years and a prolonged period of development, Rolls-Royce’s new “entry-level” model has arrived. It looks unusually restrained, but is it any good? JON WALL finds out.

- JON WALL

Restraint is not a word normally associated with Rolls-Royce. The length of a moderate yacht, vast leather chairs like thrones, a small forest of highly polished wood, a radiator grille taller than Bilbo Baggins’ front door – I could go on with the list of superlatives, but no wonder these august and majestic machines are the default choice of kings and queens everywhere. A royal train possibly excepted, they’re the closest thing to a palace on wheels.

Take the new Ghost, for example, which arrived on these shores late last year. Naturally, it’s huge; in fact, at more than 5.5m from one end to the other (and a further 17cm if you’re talking about the Extended version), not to mention a girth in excess of 2.1m, it’s so enormous you wonder whether you’ll need a bus licence to drive the thing. It also, on first glance, looks little different from the car it replaces, so you might be forgiven for thinking that it’s another case of, so far, so familiarly excessive.