The Rolls-Royce Ghost Six Senses concept.
Rolls-Royce is offering up a tasty treat for Beijing Motor Show-goers, a concept that appeals not just to your five basic senses of touch, sight, sound, smell and taste, but also what it describes as your spirit of ecstasy – a pun alluding to the maker’s classic hood ornament.
The Rolls-Royce Ghost Six Senses concept is intended to bring potential buyers to “a new level of sensory indulgence” – if not full sensory overload.
“The Ghost Six Senses concept is a luxurious environment designed for the most discerning of individuals,” proclaims Rolls-Royce CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös, who suggests the show car’s cabin “transcends” the traditional automotive interior. “It can be likened to an aura, a sense that the stunning hand-made interior embodies something of the heart and soul of each proud craftsperson involved in its creation. That’s a uniquely Rolls-Royce sixth sense that this car presents so elegantly.”
Cheers! The Ghost concept offers a champagne chiller and flutes - but you'll have to supply your own bubbly.
To tantalize your eyes, the maker has finished the exterior of the concept Ghost in Carrara White, while “the interior’s deep lustre of the Walnut Burr veneer complete (the look) with diagonally-oriented, brown oak cross-banding.”
For your ears, there’s a new audio system concept that positions several “exciter” speakers inside the leather headliner. That’s intended to raise the center of sound closer to one’s ears.
Sniff deeply, Rolls suggest, to catch the aroma of the Ghost Six Senses’ natural soft-grain leather and woody spice.
There are a number of details designed to excite the touch, from that soft-grain leather to the deep plush carpet, as well as switches and dials designed to provide the most satisfying feedback.
As for taste, no, Rolls-Royce doesn’t expect you to run your tongue over the sheet metal or give a busk to the steering wheel. But there is a cool box in the back of the big sedan for storing your champagne while on the way to a nice picnic, perhaps.
While there’s no plan to put the Rolls-Royce Ghost Six Senses into production, expect to see some of its more tasty features move into the showroom in the near future. And Chinese could be the first to see their arrival.
The extended wheelbase Phantom II measures about 20 feet nose-to-tail.
The decision to reveal the show car at the Beijing Motor Show was no fluke. China is rapidly becoming one of the world’s biggest luxury car market. In fact, it became the largest national market, last year, for Rolls’ most direct competitor, Bentley.
Demand for top-line models is expected to continue outpacing the overall growth of the Chinese market in the coming years, says analyst Yale Zhang, of Automotive Foresight, a Shanghai-based consultancy.
That is forcing makers like Rolls to struggle with ways to stand out in the luxury crowd.
One thing the British maker is doing to meet Chinese sensibilities, if you will, is with an extended wheelbase version of the just-launched Phantom II sedan — also on display in Frankfurt. The updated model brings a revised front end, as well as adaptable LED headlamps, a new infotainment system and a new 8-speed gearbox. Those are worldwide revisions. But with the vast majority of high-line Chinese buyers preferring to let their chauffeurs do the driving, Rolls is going with a stretched wheelbase providing significant extra legroom in back.
It’s not alone, incidentally, with Infiniti and BMW offering stretch models of their own this year at the Beijing show, including the Bavarian maker’s 335Li, and Infiniti’s M35hL stretch hybrid.