Rolls-Royce Phantom Drop-head Coupe

The quality of exclusivity, a key component of every Rolls-Royce made since 1906, is something as keenly appreciated by road testers as anyone else. These are the rarest and most expensive cars of all, so getting your hands on one for a day — let alone for some months — is far from being a trivial exercise.

2013 Rolls-Royce Phantom Drop-head Coupe On Road

Yet it has happened. A 2013 Rolls-Royce Phantom Drop-head Coupé in Arabian Blue, with optional stainless steel bonnet, has just joined our fleet, and for the next few months we’ll aim to be your conduit to new understanding about what it means to have access to a car that cost $ 542,123.20 before options, whose remarkable extras list added $ 73,849.60 to that exalted price tag and which will cost its next owner around $ 503,520 when we’ve driven it through the summer and expanded the existing mileage of 8,500 to 15,000 or so. It will be fascinating, in such a car, to talk about fuel consumption, cabin access, road noise and park ability alongside the more ethereal stuff such as well-being and waft ability that usually occupies reviewers’ attention in short-term associations with cars like this.

This car proceeds so smoothly that it never occurs to you to wonder which gear you’re in or what revs the engine is pulling

When last week we collected the car from Rybrook, the Rolls-Royce dealership at Hockley Heath on the edge of Birmingham, it was necessary to consider such practicalities when moving the car safely about the dealership apron. It’s big, but luckily it’s also smothered with cameras and radar aids to help with close-quarters manoeuvring, and you need them all to have a peaceful life with a car like this.

2013 Rolls-Royce Phantom Drop-head Coupe - Interior

Which is why I spent 20 minutes with sales manager Mark Jordan getting the lowdown on the car’s discreet panels and hidden switches — as well as its array of primary controls — before taking to the road. As Jordan pointed out, you can drive this car on a number of levels: intuitively by simply operating the primary controls, or by getting right into its many capabilities. As you soon learn, it’s a pleasant experience doing the first as you build up to the second.

Rolls-Royce’s angle, in lending us a $ 503,520 Phantom for such a generous period, is to show off its new Provenance system for secondhand cars, which it says will apply to Good-wood-built Rolls-Royces up to 10 years old. Richard Starkey, Provenance’s global boss, reckons his part of the business will become increasingly important. When the system fills with suitable cars, dealers can expect to sell around half as many approved used cars as new ones. He believes many buyers, especially those new to the marque, will enjoy the comparative safety of buying a car that already exists rather than specifying one new, with all the perceived risks about colours and textures this implies.

The Phantom DHC is a fine example of the flexibility and strength that Rolls-Royce’s revolutionary aluminium space frame structure has brought to its models. This open-top four-seater, with its two huge, electrically closed doors and massive, silently folding hood, uses the saloon’s powertrain and suspension packages for silence and a smooth ride, and within a few yards it demonstrates its chassis rigidity, too. With experience born of assessing “shake” in convertibles over years, my first errand was to press the Phantom over bumps and see the reaction. There was none.

Drive on and it comes to you that specifics such as the engine’s capacity (6.8 litres) and power (453bhp) are of much importance to your progress. The main thing is that the BMW-developed V12 has so many cylinders that separate impulses are never felt or even heard. This big, high car simply whispers away from rest and proceeds so smoothly through its six self-shifting ratios that it never occurs to you to wonder which gear you’re in or what revs the engine is pulling. Just as well for the latter; where a rev-counter might be in lesser cars, this one has a kind of glorified vacuum gauge showing the percentage of power not being used.

2013 Rolls-Royce Phantom Drop-head Coupe - Rear

As for bumps, they simply disappear under the nose, never to be seen again. The car’s ride is unusual. There’s a kind of “strolling” phase at low speeds, but as you go faster it stabilizes into a superb cruise that demonstrates - by removing these things - how debilitating the noise and vibration of normal progress can be. These are the first, simple discoveries about Rolls-Royce ownership. I have a feeling we have much more to learn.