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2018 Rolls-Royce Phantom First Drive | When only the best will do

Lucerne, Switzerland – Every car, regardless of where it is designed, built, or sold, can be described as a series of compromises. From economy hatchbacks to midsize sedans, fullsize pickup trucks to hybrid supercars, meeting a very specific set of criteria means intentionally missing all the rest. And so it is with the Rolls-Royce Phantom. Except that the only compromise worth talking about is that the buyer must possess a price-is-no-object desire for perfection. Before handing over the keys to a brand-new, eighth-generation Phantom, and shortly after rattling off nearly every positive-tinged adjective in the English language, Rolls-Royce communication director Richard Carter tells us that this car represents "the best that humankind can do in terms of luxury automobiles." A heady claim, but as it turns out, one that is difficult to dispute. Perhaps the biggest single element that advances this new Phantom past the model it replaces is Rolls-Royce's new Architecture of Luxury, a ground-up spaceframe platform that doesn't share its bones with any other product currently under the BMW umbrella. Not only is it 30 percent stiffer than the seventh-gen Phantom, the new architecture is flexible enough that it will form the basis for all future Rolls-Royce products. "Project Cullinan and eventually the next Ghost, Wraith, Dawn will ride on this architecture, as well as future coachbuild projects," said Philip Koehn, Director of Engineering for Rolls-Royce. Rolls-Royce goes to great pains to make the Phantom as malleable to the whims of its customers as possible. Besides the obvious paint and interior color choices – of which there are a great many – there's now a so-called Gallery option that makes up a large portion of the dashboard. It's a glass-enclosed space designed to house just about anything a Phantom customer could possibly want to put on display. We saw some beautiful ceramic work, jewel-like shell designs, and even a swath of iridescent feathers. Directly in front of the driver is a digital gauge cluster designed to mimic the look of traditional dials. It's resolution is high enough that individual pixels can't be made out from the driver's seat. We think some classically styled gauges would be more in keeping with the Phantom's mission statement, but that's our only gripe inside, and it's minor.

Aeroboat packs 1,100 seahorses of Rolls-Royce Merlin V12 power

We don't typically cover boats here - this is, after all, Autoblog and not Aquablog - but every so often something comes along that makes us want to dip our toes in the water, whether it's a Jaguar-designed speedboat, a Gulf-liveried megayacht or a Lamborghini-powered Riva Aquarama. This is another one of those occasions.
Set to be unveiled at the Salute to Style show in July at The Hurlingham Club in London, the Aeroboat is a motor yacht that seems to blend retro and furutistic lines in equal measure that would make Jules Verne proud without going Steampunk. Inspired by the Spitfire fighter plane, the Aeroboat packs aircraft-inspired switchgear and shock-mounted seats into a long, sleek form. But what really has our interests piqued is what lies beneath the stylish decks.
Each of the dozen Aeroboats to be built will pack a reconditioned, marinized, fuel-injected Rolls-Royce Merlin V12 engine - the same 27-liter powerplant that propelled the Spitfire. With 1,100 horsepower on tap, it's expected to propel the Aeroboat up to a top speed between 75 and 95 knots, or 86-109 miles per hour by landlubber standards, which is pretty damn fast on the open water.

Rolls-Royce Black Badge Cullinan 'Blue Shadow' straddles Earth and space

Rolls-Royce has another special edition for stargazing types who might not have the schedules to stay up all night stargazing. Called the Rolls-Royce Black Badge Cullinan "Blue Shadow" Private Collection, its design honors the nebulous area where Earth's atmosphere ends and so-called "outer space" begins. Since the edges of our planetary terrarium blend into space, there's no useful coloring-book-like boundary. The International Aeronautics Federation uses an arbitrary height called the Karman line, which Hungarian engineer and physicist Theodore von Karman decided would be 100 kilometers above Earth because that's around where the last traces of aerodynamic lift petered out, giving way to "astronautics." The Cullinan Blue Shadow is a canvas for artistic representation of the Karman line and what lies beyond. The deep blue exterior color signifies the atmosphere's upper layers where the blackness of space suffuses the blue of our daytime skies. Contrasting satin jewelry in the front fascia suggests the silica and aluminum oxide whitewash applied to the thermal protection tiles on craft like NASA's Space Shuttle. The Spirit of Ecstasy was produced in 3D-printed titanium coated in a blue-tinted lacquer, the base inscribed with "Blue Shadow Private Collection." The Cullinan's 22-inch wheels are also dressed in a lacquer layer for dark translucence. Inside, the starlight headliner's been decorated with an embroidered moon composed of five colors, each color sewn in with a different technique and texture. The headliner's 799 white LEDs and 384 blue LEDs create a field of stars for Luna, Rolls-Royce engineers tweaking the twinkling effect in the LEDs "for an even more enchanting glow." The painted instrument panel and door cards transition from black up high to dark and then light blue below. Six layers of colors combine five blues with a black, providing another kind of twinkle thanks to blue and clear glass particles in the clearcoat. The Private Collection clock comes with blue anodized details and an engraved "Blue Shadow." The artwork created in the seats is a first for Rolls-Royce. Each seat's been perforated more than 75,000 times in a pattern representing the Earth as seen from space.