This isn’t a car that requires a review. Rolls-Royce customers do not concern themselves with the views of the unwashed proletariat. If they did, they’d have waited to hear what it’s like, instead of already ordering so many it’s sold out until the middle of 2025.
The car is the Rolls-Royce Spectre, and it’s not just the first fully electric product of the modern Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Ltd which BMW seeded in 1998. Since Charles met Henry 119 years ago, no production spec car in their marque’s potted history has been battery powered.
Occasionally, Rolls-Royce itself likes to pay attention to journalists. In 1907, a writer in Britain’s The Autocar declared the underwhelmingly named 40/50hp model was “the best car in the world”. Granted, he only had about three to choose from back then, but Rolls was only too happy to adopt that verdict as the company’s semi-offcial slogan, emblazoning it prominently on its marketing materials for most of the ensuing century.
Claude Johnson, the cofounder who styled himself as the hyphen in Rolls-Royce, also saw the value in pinching a hack’s nickname for his marketing car, which validation, but you never know. Could come in useful…
