Luxury Extended
The one thing that you won't be doing when you get inside a Rolls Royce Ghost is ask for more leg room in the rear. But someone did. The result is the Rolls Royce Ghost Extended Wheelbase in India. The rear-seat occupants in the Ghost already had enough space for a Sumo wrestler to do push-ups in front of them. Now that wrestler can be 170mm fatter â" that's how much the leg room has increased in the Extended Wheelbase Ghost. This increase in leg room has also doubled the knee-room by a whopping 330mm.
Step inside the Rolls Royce Ghost EWB through those magnificent coach doors, press a button to shut the door, and ultimate luxury welcomes you with folded hands. The lamb wool mats make you feel like you are gliding through the air. And that feeling is helped by the car's four-corner air suspension. The suspension can even detect if the passenger has shifted from one rear seat to another and adjust settings accordingly. The dampers actually make load calculations every 2.5 milliseconds.
After you are done salivating about the enormity of space, and staring at the 'Spirit of Ecstasy' you focus on the infotainment system which has a 9.2-inch screen and is controlled by a central rotary controller on the centre arm rest between the two passengers. There is a pop-up button which decides which passenger gets to control the controls. Would it be blasphemous if we spoke about the lack of a touch screen?
At the press of a button, it's always at the press of a button, you can get yourself a massage on your way to signing that multi-million dollar deal or your next film. Just 15 minutes of massage had me ready to run a mile. The lounge seats covered in luxurious leather are slightly curved so that the passengers can turn easily to face each other, for doing what it is that you do when you face each other. On the other hand if you want to stare out at the minions passing by, you can do so with the C-pillar providing enough privacy. Or you can ask your driver to open the panoramic sunroof, which is a new addition.
In spite of this increase in length, the Rolls Royce Ghost EWB in India still roars, going from 0-100kmph in just five seconds. We did a get a brief experience at one traffic light. This Ghost is powered by the same 6.6-litre twin turbocharged V12 engine which produces 563PS and 780Nm of torque at only 1500rpm. Only! The eight speed ZF automatic gearbox handles all those numbers with extreme ease.
All of this luxury, precision, feel-like-godness, can be yours for Rs 3.05 crore (ex-showrom). Now for an interesting detail. The request for this Ghost Extended Wheelbase variant has come from China and India! Oh and the Ghost Extended Wheelbase is still half a metre shorter than the Phantom Extended Wheelbase. A full fledged Sumo wrestling ring in there then.
