Dark Side...

...rises! Rolls-Royce’s Black Badges are a symbol of youth and personality

- Shubhabrata Marmar

Out of the darkness slides forward smoothly a strong, masculine hand. An unseen smile and a firm handshake , “It will be done, sir. But .” Move the steering stalk-mounted drive selector into drive and we whisper forward into the night. The glossy back of the Rolls-Royce Wraith Black Badge ends where the night begins. And it’s ours today. The night and the most powerful of all of the Rolls-Royces.

The Rolls-Royce Wraith Black Badge media kit is full of imagery. Word pictures of powerful, capable people who got it done. And then claimed their just rewards as they so richly deserved. On the sidelines of our drive, the story varies only slightly.

Rolls-Royce’s concerted effort to find a younger, more swish clientele is clearly bearing fruit. But with youth comes a natural resistance to playing within the boundaries. And so Rolls-Royce decided to jump in and see if they couldn’t create a bespoke experience that high-classed what the youth were doing to their Rolls-Royces.

Meet the menacing Black Badge. What a name that is. The lead shot of this story seemed underexposed and dark-hued just because the cars in the photograph wore that name.

And it really is very black. As it is with luxury and Rolls-Royce, the most ordinary of things is special. So the paint on the Ghost and Wraith is the blackest paint of all. And the traditionally silver on black badge is now a silver Double R Logo (capitalisation by Rolls-Royce, naturally) on a black plaque. All of the chrome has gone into stealth mode. Even the Spirit of Ecstasy embraces the darkness. But that isn’t all. On both cars you see what looks like an ornate rim on which the tyres sit. It’s more than decoration. 22 layers of carbon fibre folded over make up the rim which is titanium-ed to the aluminium rib.