John Simister: This behemoth cocoons you in luxury
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Your support makes all the difference.We knew it was going to be big. But just how big the Phantom has turned out to be is quite a surprise.
"No car has taller wheels than this," its chief engineer, Tim Leverton, said. They are 20ins across without the tyres, which are also tall and cushioned for a wafting ride.
Yet they are in perfect proportion with the rest of this behemoth. Here is a car into which you glide horizontally, as in an MPV, rather than fall.
This is a cocooning car too, especially in the back, thanks to its "wraparound" seating. This feature, lost to most recent luxury cars, is made possible by "coach" rear doors – rear-hinged, like a London taxi. With these doors, the chief designer, Ian Cameron, said, you can exit gracefully instead of just climbing out. An electric lock stops them from being opened when the Phantom is moving, and each door has a pull-out umbrella. (Just like the Skoda Superb, actually.)
All is as forward-looking trad-Brit inside as it's possible to be within the contradictions of that idea. It's a digitally-enhanced version of the Rolls-Royces of wedding-car familiarity, with bold, chromium-plated seat runners, soft and soothing leather, no hint of anything obviously plastic, and technology rendered as discreet as it can be.
Look to the roof and you'll see a fine pair of Art Deco interior lights. Now exit gracefully, and take in the full force of the corpulence. The shape is full of past Rolls-Royce references, including the drooping waistline, the shallow windows and the front wheels pushed well forward but what is this new take on the front grille? Rolls-Royce grilles have long been slightly convex to make them look flat, but this one definitely bulges. What's more, it isn't even chromium-plated: it's polished aluminium.
What will it be like to drive? Very smooth, very quiet, effortlessly rapid, free of rattles: those are the obvious expectations, but they have risen even in this stratospheric part of the car market.
The Phantom is designed to be as good to drive as to be driven in (a BMW influence) yet comparisons stop there. BMW might run Rolls-Royce's exchequer but even in its latest incarnation this remains a very British phenomenon.
For all that, the applause when the Phantom was unveiled at its hi-tech Goodwood factory home was oddly muted. That's rather British, too.
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