- Doors and Seats
2 doors, 4 seats
- Engine
6.6TT, 12 cyl.
- Engine Power
465kW, 870Nm
- Fuel
Petrol (98) 14.6L/100KM
- Manufacturer
RWD
- Transmission
Auto
- Warranty
4 Yr, Unltd KMs
- Ancap Safety
NA
Lost in Translation: Driving a Rolls-Royce in Tokyo
What's it like driving a million-dollar coupe in one of the world's most crowded cities?
On the long list of places I’d rather not be gingerly piloting a Rolls-Royce worth significantly more than a Sydney apartment, the frantic streets of downtown Tokyo - with its homicidal taxi drivers and wilfully unpredictable pedestrians - rank somewhere near the very top.
People and cars jostle for space on narrow, crowded streets lined with a blend of high-end boutiques and all-night noodle shops. And while the impossible politeness of Japan’s capital goes some way to making commuting here less aggressive than in Australia’s major cities, the sheer weight of traffic feels likes it is pushing in on the very, very expensive metal of the Wraith Black Badge currently inching its way through the back-end of peak hour.
This $765,000 drive-away Black Badge ($125,000 more than the standard Wraith) suddenly feels very big, and the street very small. I’d be sweating, if it wasn’t for a climate-control system (helped along by fan-cooled seats) that chills the cabin so effectively it could be used to cryogenically freeze the car’s wealthy owners. So instead I distract myself by trying to recall the insurance excess small-print on the loan-car paperwork. There were a lot of zeroes.
But it’s here, on the crowded streets of Tokyo’s Shinjuku precinct, under the neon glow of a million flashing bulbs dancing off the deep black of our car’s hand-polished body, that this particular Rolls-Royce is designed to feel most at home.
For this is a Roller like no other. Forget peaked-cap chauffeurs and people of old money cocooned in the soft-leather confines of the backseat. Hell, the Wraith doesn’t even have rear doors, and it’s hard to imagine any owners would be willing to awkwardly climb into the back over the folded-down driver’s seat.
Nope, this one’s for a new generation of Rolls-Royce buyers. Startup entrepreneurs. Tech millionaires. Young money. Or, in the grandiose words of the brand itself, a “generation of young, self-empowered, self-confident rule-breakers…darkly obsessed by their own pursuits and accomplishments from which they derive a pure adrenaline rush.”
And the one thing these well-heeled hell-raisers apparently have in common? They like to drive themselves. And so the Wraith Black Badge isn’t just the fastest and most powerful Rolls-Royce ever built, it’s also designed to be enjoyed from somewhere few models before it ever have been; the driver’s seat.
Rolls-Royce tells us the Black Badge embraces the brand’s dark side - like a Mr Hyde alter-ego to the standard Wraith’s Dr Jekyll - and its blacked-out body work does makes it look ready to swim through the night like a shark prowling the ocean’s inky depths.
It’ll fit in here, then. There are plenty of sharks in Shinjuku. This is Yakuza territory. Home of the Japanese mafia.
“You can park this anywhere you’d like,” says our guide. “People will think you’re one of them. Nobody will bother you. And nobody will dare give you a ticket.”
Another perk of Rolls-Royce ownership, no parking tickets. If the same rule applies in Australia, it would pay for itself in no time. But he’s not quite finished.
“Just don’t wind down the window. If you do, you might have some trouble with some of the younger members, the henchman, but it shouldn’t be too bad. Probably just shouting. Probably…”
But if trouble strikes, a getaway won’t be a problem. Under that endless expanse of bonnet lurks the brand’s 6.6-litre, twin-turbo V12 engine (the world’s obsession with fuel economy is clearly yet to reach the gilded halls of Rolls-Royce HQ), that will send 465kW and 870Nm wafting toward the rear tyres - an increase of 70Nm over regular Wraith’s already pretty significant 800Nm of torque.
Out-and-out pace isn’t the goal here - though the 2.4-tonne Wraith Black Badge will hurtle to 100km/h in just 4.5secs, a physics-bending performance that’s hard to believe, even from the driver’s seat - but it definitely feels plenty urgent, pushing into the future with an effortless ease, the still-muted thrum of the exhaust bouncing around the cabin as the world outside whips by like you’re in a silent movie.
As a result, it glides through Tokyo in near-silence, the mayhem outside locked behind the thick glass that makes the cabin a little oasis of peace and quiet as the storm of people rages outside.
So far so Rolls-Royce, then, but get a little more aggressive with the accelerator, and the promised alter-ego soon emerges.
It takes a long time for the streets of Tokyo to empty enough to do anything but feather the throttle, and even when they do, it’s hard to find anywhere near enough space to really get this Wraith moving. But our salvation lies in the now-empty tunnels beneath the city.
While you’d never find something so uncouth as a Sport button in the cigar-lounge cabin of the Wraith, the Black Badge cleverly allows you to control the sportiness with your right foot.
Treat the pedal gently, and this blacked-out Wraith will shift gears with all the silky smoothness of the standard car. But push the pedal past the quarter mark (which unlocks a fair bit of shove in something this powerful), and it will automatically hold gears for a little longer, giving you another 500rpm before shifting up. Dump your right foot, and the car will recognise your need for speed, automatically setting the gearbox to rev-out to 6,000rpm before shifting.
Downshifts have been tweaked to occur quicker when you’re heavy with the gas, too, helping unlock that mountain of torque a little sooner, and it will shift down faster as you brake into corners. It’s all very un-Rolls-Royce, but it’s such a gentlemanly way of doing things, and it perfectly fits the character of the brand.
The air suspension has been firmed up, too, designed to inject some much-needed stiffness when something that weighs 2.4 tonnes and stretches more than 5.3 metres attacks a twisting road. It’s a move that surely had the old-hands at the Rolls-Royce factory in Goodwood choking on their tea in horror, such is the brand’s famed reputation for a pillow-like ride quality.
It might sound like sacrilege, but the result is something surprisingly close to agile considering the weight it's lugging around. It can’t entirely hide its bulk, but the combination of urgent acceleration and surprisingly engaged steering (light at city speeds, but adding weight at pace) makes this Black Badge a huge amount of fun from behind the wheel.
The flat-footed sprint to 100km/h is just incredible, the big Wraith rocking back onto its right-side wheels like a raw-bones muscle car as that huge engine loads up, before launching you into the road ahead. And you really need to keep and eye on the speedo, with the detached ambience of the cabin disguising just how fast you’e actually going. It’s a ludicrous experience, but in the best possible way.
All this Black Badge business hasn’t hurt the Wraith’s kerb appeal, either. It maintains its classic-cool shape, with two almost body-length doors that are hinged on the right, at the rear of the car, rather than at the front, so you pull them open toward the back tyres (and, for that matter, blindly into traffic). It’s such a cool trick, much more so than scissor doors that open upward, and it’s one I doubt you’d ever get sick of.
The famed Spirit of Ecstasy (the open-armed lady that adorns the bonnet) has been painted black, as has most of the brightwork on the car, including the exhaust pipes. And the wheels, a work of art in themselves that took four years to design, are 21 sculpted inches of layered carbon fibre, centred with a hub made of aircraft-grade aluminium.
Sink in the plush seats and the attention to detail in the interior borders on ridiculous (the leather is sourced from cows that don’t get pregnant, so there’s no stretch marks to disturb the cabin ambience, for example), but the standout is the handcrafted dash constructed from aerospace-grade carbon fibre that’s been threaded with aluminium. It’s built by weaving together threads of aluminium that measure a microscopic 0.014mm in diameter, which sounds like painful, painstaking work.
And suddenly, here in Japan’s busy capital, the Wraith Black Badge makes perfect sense.
Nobody does night quite like Tokyo, the now-empty streets still bathed in neon weirdness. It’s excessive, it’s wonderful, it’s completely over the top. And the Rolls-Royce fits right in.
So you want to Tokyo drift?
Ignore the picture painted by the many, many cars clogging Tokyo’s road network; it’s actually not really a driving city.
Most of the drivers you see are commuting to or from work from outside the city, but for us tourist types, the Tokyo public transport system is one of best in the world, with an extensive network of trains, subways and busses that are clean, cheap and operate with Germanic punctuality.
Wander outside the city, though, and your public transport options shrink, and a car is definitely the most convenient choice. But the rules are a little different to what you might be used to when abroad
According to the Japanese Embassy, Australians who turn up, Aussie licence in hand, will be turned away from the car rental outlets. Instead you need a current licence, as well as an International Driver’s Permit.
They’re not hard to get (but you do need to be over 18), with the relevant motoring club in your state (NRMA in NSW, RACV in Victoria etc) able to arrange one fairly quickly at a cost of about $39.
Permit in hand, you can drive in Japan for up to 365 days from the day you first enter the country. After that point, you’ll need to leave the country to reset your clock.
Writer: Andrew Chesterton
2018 Rolls-Royce Wraith Black Badge Price and Specifications
Price: $745,000 driveaway
Engine: 6.6-litre V12 twin-turbo petrol
Power: 465kW at 5600rpm
Torque: 870Nm at 1700-4500rpm
Transmission: 8-pd automatic, RWD
Fuel use: 14.6L/100km