During adolescence, there’s a good chance you went through what was commonly referred to as a phase. Blue jeans get relegated to the back of the closet in favor of the skinniest black denim available, playlists switch up, and visions of piercings and tattoos danced in our heads. While some of us mellowed out of teenage rebellion for the most part, others didn’t, and some of those who didn’t are unfathomably rich. With that in mind, the electric Rolls-Royce Spectre coupe just received the moody Black Badge treatment, and it seems just about perfect for eco-minded one-percenters who still don’t like their step-parents.
Right off the bat, the Spectre Black Badge strikes a moodier pose than the standard model, as it seems Rolls-Royce has been a bit eager to turn the brightwork into, well, not-so-brightwork. Nightwork? The trim around the greenhouse and on each flank has been blacked out, complementing a black skirting package that hides the height of an under-floor battery pack but looks a bit chunky on occasion.
New five-spoke 23-inch forged wheels seem a bit like a highly evolved take on the Enkei G-Zero, and I actually reckon they work fairly well here. The illuminated grille is likely to be a point of contention as bright colors like Forge Yellow and Turchese seem a little bit Autozone, but you know what they say about matters of taste.
With 659 horsepower and 792 lb.-ft. of torque on tap, the Spectre Black Badge is the most powerful Rolls-Royce ever, but there’s a catch. While a new Infinity Mode unlocks full horsepower, you’ll need to activate launch control — officially called Spirited Mode — to access peak torque.
Machines like the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT and the Lucid Air Sapphire outgun the Spectre Black Badge by a considerable margin, but it still puts out 82 more horsepower and 128 more lb.-ft. of torque than a regular Spectre. Rolls-Royce claims this results in a zero-to-60 mph time of 4.1 seconds, and while that’s not quick enough to outrun your feelings, the moody interior decor of this high-output Spectre can serve as a privacy chamber to shut out the world.
The big highlight of the Spectre Black Badge cabin is a new trim called Technical Fibre. Woven carbon fiber and metal threads ride atop black wood, resulting in a finish that almost looks like mallgoth snakeskin. It’s very Rolls-Royce in technical execution, but the visual effect suggests that this isn’t a Rolls for traditionalists. Likewise, the digital gauge cluster has a new Synth Wave mode, perfect for wealthy individuals who saw Ryan Gosling in “Drive” and identified a bit too much with the character.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the Spectre Black Badge is the package of adjustments made to the handling. Not only has the steering weight been increased from pinky finger-light, Rolls-Royce has tweaked the damping and active roll stabilization for less body roll, less squat under hard acceleration, and less dive under braking.
At the end of the day, the Rolls-Royce Spectre Black Badge seems to target a minuscule niche. On the one hand, it’s not full-on Blenheim Palace, as it doesn’t sport enough wood or brightwork. On the other, it’s not exactly Bruce Wayne since it doesn’t trade close to the upper echelons of EV performance. Maybe it’s Edward Cullen, especially with the illuminated door card trim, but it seems a bit symptomatic of a phase. With a starting price of $490,000, perhaps the $67,000 premium over the standard Spectre would be better spent getting to the root of this angst.
Top graphic image: Rolls-Royce
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Perfect for JD Vance (and his guyliner!)
Infinity Mode is only relevant if you shout TO INFINITY AND BEYOND when enabling it
“While a new Infinity Mode unlocks full horsepower, you’ll need to activate launch control — officially called Spirited Mode — to access peak torque.”
Times sure have changed. Back in the day Rolls Royce would have called it “Adequate Mode.”
As a rule, blacked out brightwork doesn’t bother me at all, and often I find it preferable as I don’t love chrome. As for this car, I have no opinion one way or the other. Its so unobtainable that even generating an opinion is like deciding I dislike the color of the sun. So what?
People like to hate on the German luxury brands offering blackout packages but I find them more appealing than chrome in most applications…and with how busy the designs of BMW in particular can get I find that the black package (I think they call it Shadowline) can tone things down a bit and make them more tasteful. But anyway, look at a regular Audi S3, then look at one with the black optic package and tell me with a straight face that it looks better without it.
Black Badge seems to be Rolls way of targeting the new-money rich, and as far as I know their expected clientele are lapping up every new black badge model released. The new money target really shows because there is no Phantom BB. BB is Ghost, Spectre, and Cullinan only, the models that skew far younger than the Phantom which is the pinnacle of landed gentry generational wealth old money type car.
Old money tends to be more into stealth wealth but appreciates the craftsmanship of a luxury good with heritage. That’s not to say there aren’t old money folks who like to shout about how rich they are (we elected one President after all) but in my experiences brushing elbows with the upper echelon generational wealth there’s often a pride in not wasting money on excess and flashiness. The vast majority of the very wealthy people I’ve ever known usually don’t drive Ferraris and if they do have fancy stuff it’s usually of the “if you know you know” variety.
New money is the exact opposite of that. It’s about consuming the absolute most that you possibly can and being as loud and ostentatious about it as humanly possible. No attention is bad attention, especially if people are gawking at your wealth and signaling how hard you don’t give a fuck about the opinions of others is a big part of the equation.
Those folks are who things like the Ghost, Cullinan, BMW XM, Cyber Truck, Purosangue, Urus, etc. are for and I understand the business case for appealing to them…even though I find the products and idea of FLEXING to be tasteless nonsense.
I was always on the periphery of the goth scene. Not that the military high school I went to gave us a lot of choices in our fashion. There were always a few kids though who found a way to express themselves while staying just inside the day’s assigned uniform. I didn’t like getting yelled at so I stuck to the rules.
I suspect this is more goth-inspired than truly goth. It’s really hard to make a hyper luxury car feel natural in a scene for the outcasts who don’t want to be noticed by their preppy and jock peers. A Rolls Royce will draw a crowd no matter how subdued you try to make it.
Congratulations, Rolls-Royce. You’ve built the definitive automotive exemplar of “rich poser.”
Being a billionaire and being environmentally conscious are mutually exclusive
…with that out of the way, I love purple cars, and this one is very purple. I also think luxury yachts are one of the use cases best suited for electrification. Even with what I assume will be numerous software issues accounted for, this will also probably be much less of a headache to own than an ICE Rolls.
Suffice to say, I don’t hate the car itself. I maybe even kind of like it. I’d be curious what Uncle Adrian has to say because a kind-of-goth British luxury coupe seems like something he’ll have strong opinions on.
This car, with the EV powertrain, gives it’s owner the ability to create total disconnect of the driver from the outside environment can be complete.
Is that environmental unconsciousness?
I wish I had a billion dollars so that my distaste for this car didn’t sound like sour grapes.