September 18, 2007

Track Test:
2007 Rolls-Royce Phantom

QuickTime Video: Watch the Phantom lapping Calabogie Motorsports Park

Gallery: 2007 Rolls-Royce Phantom

CALABOGIE, Ont.–There's a definite benchmark to see if you have a reasonably quick production car at Calabogie Motorsports Park.

It's comes about one-quarter of a lap around the five-kilometre outer loop, along the back straight called Rocky Road, named for the rugged Canadian Shield the sector cuts through.

If your road car can touch 180 km/h here, before needing to heavily brake for the tricky set of right-handers called Mulligans, you've got a decent set of wheels.

Which made the moment of watching the speedometer needle of the Rolls-Royce Phantom, swiftly arcing toward the magical 180 marker along Rocky Road, all the more surreal in an already pretty surreal car.

For such a special instant, I felt compelled to boast such to my rear-seat passengers, one of whom was the $432,000 Phantom's official babysitter, BMW Group Canada's Rob Dexter.

And for that concise moment, the world's most grandiose luxo-barge was a sports sedan.

At least as sporty as a six-metre-long, 2,630 kg (only 3 kg shy of a Ford Expedition) sedan could be.

Officially opening last September, the park and its 5.05 km track is two kilometres off Highway 511 and about an hour from Ottawa International Airport. As far as Dexter knew, this was the first time a Phantom had been track tested in Canada.

Alas, like most other all-too-brief moments of ecstasy in life, reality abruptly set in.

As I revelled in the Phantom's surprising high-speed capabilities, my peripheral vision was picking up the track's ground-level braking markers flashing by my left window like blades in a pinwheel: 3, 2, 1 ...

All of a sudden, the Phantom's avoirdupois needed to be reined in, um, like now! Whoa Nelly, Trigger, Bessy – and any of the remaining 450 horses generated by the Phantom's 6.8-litre V12 – pleeeeezz!

With a trajectory that would have meant, at best, grass stains on the John Lennon-white Phantom (my exterior colour description, not Rolls-Royce's), a quick turn to the right of the oversized helm created what amounted to as near a four-wheel-drift that the Phantom's e-nannies would allow.

The Phantom's previously silent cabin was only now suggesting the 21-inch doughnuts were objecting to the abuse I was putting them through, slightly squealing like children in a playground.

As the Great Ship Phantom righted itself for the hilly track's next sector with amusingly little drama, I squeaked out to my occupants, "There, that's better" hoping to assuage their concerns for their own safety for the remaining three-quarters of the lap.

So how did a Rolls-Royce Phantom end up being used as a track car? More importantly, what's it like to lap the world's most ostentatious luxury sedan?

When we first asked BMW Group Canada about taking the Phantom to a racetrack, admittedly, there was some hesitation.

Dexter vacillated for only a split second.

"I thought it would be a great opportunity to demonstrate the high-performance characteristics that are engineered into a Phantom," he said.

The rear-wheel-driver was officially launched at the 2003 Detroit auto show. Ever since, it's been the sedan to be seen in, easily pushing the $288,990 Bentley Arnage R and $335,000 Maybach 57 out of the way when it comes to red carpet exposure.

Rolls positions the car as a limousine for drivers, calculating that 95 per cent of owners drive their Phantoms.

Rolls-Royce doesn't have any kind of real racing heritage. That was always left to Bentley, from the Le Mans race cars in the 1920s through to the Speed 8 of 2001 to 2003.

The only Rolls racing reference I could dig up was a Michael Wilcock of Sussex, England, who built the Swandean Spitfire Special. Using a Rolls-Royce Merlin XXV engine garnered from a scrapyard, Wilcock ran the car in the 1953 Brighton Speed Trials.

Ergonomically, the interior controls of the Phantom are more about impressing than pressing on. Most of them are shiny, chromed toggles that are hard to figure out when you have a decreasing radius to deal with.

As expected, one sits atop the wide and comfy seats. A wand similar to what you'll find on a BMW 7 Series engages the six-speed automatic; PRND exclusively. There's also a "low" gear ratio button on the steering wheel for quicker getaways or when your passengers packed their steamer trunks.

For such a grandiose car, the Phantom's steering around some of Calabogie's tighter turns was delicate, linear and precise.

The stiff, all-aluminum body allowed the air suspension to keep my passengers' heads from lolling back and forth as I beat on the Phantom around the loop. Although the suspension is set for comfort, the Rolls will corner flat when your brain is convinced it should roll over like a log from the Ottawa River.

Asking for power when exiting corners, the quaint "Power Reserve" gauge indicated, in percentage points, how far I was depressing the gas pedal. It's really the only indication that the V12 was even working.

In fact, while pounding the Phantom from apex to apex, it's biggest strength in its normal role as a supreme sedan – its ability to be coffin quiet – also happens to be its biggest liability as a driver's car.

Am I caning the engine? Dunno.

Are the tires squealing? Couldn't tell.

Are my passengers getting car sick? Don't tell me!

There's so little feedback to the driver that I ended up guessing what the Rolls was doing at pavement level for most of my hot lap (at least I think it was hot).

In the end, the Phantom, my two passengers and I posted a respectable lap time of three minutes, 12 seconds – and zero lawsuits from BMW.

So far.

2007 Rolls-Royce Phantom

PRICE: base/as tested $432,000/same

FEDERAL PENALTY, FUEL-INEFFICIENCY: $3,000

ENGINE: 6.8L V12

POWER/TORQUE: 453 hp/531 lb.-ft.

FUEL CONSUMPTION: (L/100 km) city 18.1, hwy 11.4 as tested (don’t ask!)

COMPETITION: Bentley Arnage, Maybach 57

WHAT’S BEST: Totally bespoke accommodations, (relatively) good power-to-weight ratio, eerily quiet

WHAT’S WORST: Bigger than my first apartment, some of the controls aren’t immediately recognizable

WHAT’S INTERESTING: Rolls-Royce says 95 per cent of Phantom owners drive their own cars