The Gentleman Magazine Issue 15 | June 2019 | Page 37

Black Badge Effortless, everywhere
Black Badge is Rolls-Royce’s response to a small and select
group of clients who have asked the marque for motor cars
with specific, focused characteristics that reflect their different
take on life, success and the luxury they consume. These people
choose to define themselves differently from their wider social
group; a subset within a subset. In July 1917, a British diplomat, Hugh Lloyd-Thomas, was
dining in a Cairo club with his wife, Aileen, when a man in
flowing robes swept in and demanded: “Whose Rolls-Royce
is this outside?” When Aileen said it was hers, the man
announced that he was commandeering it “in the name of His
Majesty’s armed forces” and drove away. He was, of course, T.
E. Lawrence, more familiar to millions as Lawrence of Arabia;
both he and the car would be immortalised in one of the most
famous photographs of the First World War.
For over a century such individuals, possessed of a dark and
restless spirit, have been drawn to Rolls-Royce’s unique allure.
Luminaries including Sir Malcolm Campbell, Howard Hughes
and Muhammad Ali have all shared the marque’s founding
philosophy; an uncompromising refusal to accept the status
quo and a constant yearn to innovate, create and advance.
Their restless spirit was also shared by the marque’s co-
founder; himself one of the great disrupters of his day. The
Honourable C.S. Rolls was a man in a hurry. Not satisfied with
fundamentally altering the road-car landscape, he sought more
and pursued his appetite for advancement and adventure in the
air; a passion that would ultimately lead to his untimely demise
aged just 33.
It is this indomitable spirit that, since the launch of Black
Badge, has captivated so many of today’s young owners, who
are drawn to Rolls-Royce in the knowledge that no other luxury
house is possessed of the vision and flexibility to meet their
demands both in design and engineering terms. Indeed, Black
Badge serves to amplify the inherent characteristics that have
driven so many new, younger patrons of luxury to the marque.
In conceiving Black Badge versions of Wraith, Ghost and
Dawn, the marque’s Bespoke designers and engineers drew
upon their instinctive understanding of the unique lives of
these extraordinary men and women to create both design
and engineering treatments that perfectly amplify the inherent
values of these great Rolls-Royces.
Black Badge models are the ‘alter egos’ of the standard models:
darker, edgier, with more power and torque and enhanced
driving dynamics to open up the Rolls-Royce brand to new
audiences.
Styling details include a dark-chrome Spirit of Ecstasy, wheels
and carbon-fibre interior components, plus the ‘inverted’
black-on-silver ‘RR’ logo: as with every other Rolls-Royce,
however, customers can add whatever Bespoke elements they
wish, so even a Black Badge car can be any colour you desire.
A century after Lawrence’s exploits, Rolls-Royce once again
produced a car capable of conquering the most hostile
environments on Earth. The Cullinan super-luxury SUV
caused an international sensation on its launch in 2018, and
set the new global standard in luxury off-road motoring.
Cullinan was engineered from scratch to enable customers to
go anywhere, see anything and do everything they desire with
total confidence, while cocooned in the comfort and splendour
embodied in the Rolls-Royce name. To prove its all-terrain
credentials, the car completed a 12,000-mile odyssey through
some of the world’s most challenging terrain, in partnership
with National Geographic. As well as the Scottish Highlands,
the Austrian Alps and the American West, Cullinan’s itinerary
included the arid wastes of the Middle East, where it effortlessly
confirmed Lawrence’s assertion that 'a Rolls in the desert is
above rubies.'
“We are deeply conscious of our heritage: it is a tremendous
privilege to be continuing and building on work that began 115
years ago,” says Torsten Müller-Ötvös, Chief Executive, Rolls
Royce Motor Cars. “But we also understand that our founders
were visionaries, always looking to do things in new and
different ways. It’s that spirit of excellence and innovation that
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars embodies and celebrates today.