Rolls Royce Spectre Black Badge: Beyond the Infinite

Watching the “Spirit of Ecstasy" cut through the Mediterranean air, with three-tonnes of the most sophisticated automotive technology attached to it, is in equal parts a novel and unsettling experience. The latter because the aforementioned tonnage of hardware costs nearly ₹10 crore, so chucking it into the first corner of the ParcMotor circuit near Barcelona like it’s any other sports coupé, feels ill-advised.

The car in question is the Rolls Royce Spectre Black Badge. The Spectre is the first all-electric car to be manufactured by Rolls Royce, and serves as the brand’s current two-door coupè flagship. The Black Badge treatment is meted out to all Rolls Royces and are defined by specific tweaks to the interior, exterior and the power train. Y’know, just in case your bone stock Rolls didn’t seem exclusive enough. It’s the brand’s way of initiating the Rolls Royce buyer into a world of infinite customisation and marks the entry-point to the wonderful and idiosyncratic Rolls Royce bespoke experience.

The Black Badge treatment suits the Spectre the most, out of all the Rolls Royce cars. Perhaps because it’s the closest Rolls has come to making a proper drivers’ car. Yes, being an EV, the Spectre weighs more than even the Georgian-villa-on-wheels that is the Phantom, but it’s an absolute powerhouse whose wattage has been tweaked-up so it now delivers 650bhp (73 bhp over the standard) and 1065 Nm of torque – a 10% increment over the standard Spectre. This makes it the most powerful Rolls Royce in history. So, the blacked-out door handles, Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament, and the massive 23-inch alloys seem to fit its stealthy, Bond villain vibe. There’s more to it, of course, than outright speed. For instance, there are 44,000 colours to choose from, although for most, the new “Vapour Violet" shade – inspired by the discotheque era, ought to do it. In case it doesn’t, Rolls is here to quite literally dazzle you with an even more densely-packed array of stars on the dashboard, along with a variety of interior trims, colours and materials to pick from. It’s the 0.001 percenter equivalent of candyland.

Rolls Royce Spectre Black Badge comes with a 102.3 kWh battery that weighs a massive 700 kg.

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Rolls Royce Spectre Black Badge comes with a 102.3 kWh battery that weighs a massive 700 kg.

The House of Rolls Royce, located in goodwood, UK certainly is. The 42-acre manufacture is where every Rolls Royce in the world steps-off its singular assembly line. Consumers get to come and customise their rolls with hand-stitched leather motifs, a mind-boggling array of dual-tone paint finishes, starlit headliners to match the sky constellation on the night of your birth – it’s an exercise in indulgence that most car buyers simply cannot fathom. It’s also ground zero for Rolls Royce’s expansion plan – essentially to accommodate more space for the brand’s bespoke and coach-built endeavours – cutting down on the delivery time of coach-built vehicles.

Flash back to the Rolls Royce track session – a phrase that seems oxymoronic until you find a video on YouTube of a Spectre, admittedly out of breath, being thrashed around the Goodwood circuit. The Black Badge doesn’t go out of breath. It doesn’t squat or dive too hard under heavy acceleration and braking. It also comes with a special “Infinity mode" that unlocks the full electric might of the motor, unleashing 1065 Nm of torque instantaneously. The Spectre emits a foreboding electronic hum that’s unlike any earthly sound. It’s sinister, futuristic and it rises to a crescendo as you climb the revs. You almost never hear the outro, since you always run out of road, or in this instance, enter a chicane. But you get to feel like an alien warlord arriving in a very exotic spaceship.

"This isn’t a racing experience" says an exasperated instructor as I pilot the Spectre Black Badge past the apex of a long, sweeping curve. The margin for error is understandably slim, inversely proportional to my curiosity as to just how far the Spectre can go. Nothing quite prepares you for how flatly the Spectre corners. I lean-into the corner, expecting some level of body roll, except the moment never comes to pass. This can partly be attributed to the inherently low centre of gravity, thanks to the massive 700 kg, 102.3 kWh battery, and partly to the fact that Rolls has tweaked the suspension damping on the Spectre Black Badge. There’s also the fact that Active Rolls Stabilization has been dialled-up. What’s peak Rolls Royce here is that there are no drive or suspension modes, there’s no fiddling about on the touchscreen, no knobs on the steering to adjust – the Spectre changes its character to suit your driving style with a near-telepathic sense of urgency. Even the steering feedback has been tweaked so the Black Badge feels a bit more communicative, even though the view is considerably and imperiously higher than it would be on any performance car.

On the road, the Spectre is pure Rolls Royce. You’d be forgiven for believing that it hovers over any surface – never losing its composure and cocooning you into a sort of quietude that qualifies as its own dimension. The orchestral thrum emanating from a dab of the throttle is a party trick that never gets old.

There are faster EVs out there, hitting 100kph in less than 4.1 seconds. But it’s the manner in which a car so superlatively comfortable, delivers the speed, that makes it remarkable. While “Infinity Mode" is good for short bursts of speed, the “Spirit Mode" serves as the de facto “launch control". All you have to do is initiate “Infinity Mode" by pressing a silver, steering-mounted button, squeezing the brakes followed by the throttle and then letting go of the brakes. The Spectre hunkers down and then barrels past the main straight like a comet, hitting 100kph in a scarcely believable 3.5 seconds. You can even improve braking by initiating regen braking (again, just one mode), but on track, you’re better off letting the actual brakes bring the car to a halt.

Driving A Rolls Royce Spectre is an exercise in discovering how deficient other luxury sedans are. I say sedan, because it’s got about as much room at the back as a Ghost. Nothing is as quiet, as refined, as intuitive and quite as comfortable. It’s also an exercise in discovering just how much performance can be squeezed out of a villa-sized luxury car. Roll stabilisation, the stiffening-up of the dampers has improved on what was already a near-perfect car. Step out of the BB Spectre and the world will never be the same, because in comparison, everything from the outside world feels like sensory assault. No superlatives are enough: the Black Badge Spectre is the pinnacle of luxury automobiles.

(Parth Charan is an independent automotive journalist and writer who has written on cars, motorcycles and the automotive industry for the past 12 years. He lives in Mumbai.)

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