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2022 Rolls-Royce Ghost Black Badge | Ecstasy in the shadows

Every now and again, something hits my driveway that absolutely stumps me. It can be tricky enough to come up with something to write about the fifth Hyundai Sonata or third Jeep Wrangler I’ve driven in the space of 18 months, but something like the 2022 Rolls-Royce Ghost Black Badge presents a very different conundrum: What can I possibly say to the person who has a half million dollars to spend on their next ride? I rounded up there but not by much. Before tax, tags and your driverÂ’s salary, this Ghost checks in at $484,950. Of that, $43,850 goes to Black Badge, which, when boiled down to its purest essence, is an enthusiastÂ’s equipment package with some rather dramatic aesthetic components. Rolls-RoyceÂ’s reputation is that of a builder of cars meant to be driven in rather than driven, but Ghost is the de facto “driverÂ’s” four-door in the lineup, and Black Badge is as close to an antidote to that cliche as youÂ’ll find in the company's portfolio. While it is a performance model, Black Badge doesn't completely blow the doors off the Ghost's already-impressive baseline performance. It benefits from an additional 29 horsepower and 57 pound-feet of torque (for a total of 583 hp and 663 lb-ft, respectively) and retuned air springs that “alleviate body roll under more assertive cornering.” The brakes were also tweaked for more immediate response and shorter pedal travel, but the clamps themselves are identical to a standard GhostÂ’s. Put another way, Black Badge is a performance package that happens to cost more than some performance cars. Welcome to tier 0 of car ownership. ThatÂ’s a hollow greeting, of course. Rolls-Royce sold a grand total of 5,586 (ahem) motor cars in 2021, and not one of them is among my permanent collection. YouÂ’re shocked, I know. Statistically, weÂ’re quite likely to be in the same boat. IÂ’m living vicariously through the Rolls-Royce marketing budget and youÂ’re living vicariously through me. Too bad. IÂ’m pretty boring. So boring that the best outing I could come up with was a jaunt to a lake cottage just 30 miles or so north of Detroit proper. Given this carÂ’s price point, youÂ’d be forgiven for insisting that the Ghost had better be able to do just about anything one might expect from modern four-wheeled transportation, but realistically, the person who can afford to be chauffeured in a Black Badge can likely call on other forms of transit should the weather take a turn for the worse.

The UK votes for Brexit and it will impact automakers

It's the first morning after the United Kingdom voted for what's become known as Brexit – that is, to leave the European Union and its tariff-free internal market. Now begins a two-year process in which the UK will have to negotiate with the rest of the EU trading bloc, which is its largest export market, about many things. One of them may be tariffs, and that could severely impact any automaker that builds cars in the UK. This doesn't just mean companies that you think of as British, like Mini and Jaguar. Both of those automakers are owned by foreign companies, incidentally. Mini and Rolls-Royce are owned by BMW, Jaguar and Land Rover by Tata Motors of India, and Bentley by the VW Group. Many other automakers produce cars in the UK for sale within that country and also export to the EU. Tariffs could damage the profits of each of these companies, and perhaps cause them to shift manufacturing out of the UK, significantly damaging the country's resurgent manufacturing industry. Autonews Europe dug up some interesting numbers on that last point. Nissan, the country's second-largest auto producer, builds 475k or so cars in the UK but the vast majority are sent abroad. Toyota built 190k cars last year in Britain, of which 75 percent went to the EU and just 10 percent were sold in the country. Investors are skittish at the news. The value of the pound sterling has plummeted by 8 percent as of this writing, at one point yesterday reaching levels not seen since 1985. Shares at Tata Motors, which counts Jaguar and Land Rover as bright jewels in its portfolio, were off by nearly 12 percent according to Autonews Europe. So what happens next? No one's terribly sure, although the feeling seems to be that the jilted EU will impost tariffs of up to 10 percent on UK exports. It's likely that the UK will reciprocate, and thus it'll be more expensive to buy a European-made car in the UK. Both situations will likely negatively affect the country, as both production of new cars and sales to UK consumers will both fall. Evercore Automotive Research figures the combined damage will be roughly $9b in lost profits to automakers, and an as-of-yet unquantified impact on auto production jobs. Perhaps the EU's leaders in Brussels will be in a better mood in two years, and the process won't devolve into a trade war. In the immediate wake of the Brexit vote, though, the mood is grim, the EU leadership is angry, and investors are spooked.

Rolls-Royce confirms new luxury SUV name

Transcript: Rolls-Royce confirms name of new luxury SUV. Rolls-Royce officially acknowledges Cullinan as the name of its new “high-bodied vehicle.” The automaker is steering around the SUV moniker. The name Cullinan comes from the largest flawless diamond ever found. The Cullinan will share a platform with the Phantom. Meaning it will likely get a 6.75-liter twin-turbo V12 engine with an 8-speed automatic transmission. With a possible output of 563 horsepower and 664 pound feet of torque. The Cullinan looks nearly ready for production and we expect the wraps to come off in the next few months. With deliveries starting in 2019. Rolls-Royce Cullinan will be the official name of the luxury automakers SUV. The “high-bodied vehicle” is named after the Cullinan diamond, the largest flawless diamond ever found. We expect the official reveal of the Cullinan in the next few month. For more coverage head over to autoblog.com Rolls-Royce SUV Autoblog Minute Videos Original Video camouflage