Several years ago, I was left with a gaping hole on my flatplan – the template upon which an editor lays out an issue’s articles and adverts, for anyone not in the magazine game (which, the world going the way that it is, will only become more and more of you) – when I learned that one of our lead interviewees was facing the possibility of being sued by one of our most supportive advertisers. Rollocks (which is not the name of the advertiser).

The interviewee in question was in the business of customising Swiss watches, essentially coating them in a black, carbon-based coating, and doing rather well for himself in the process. Trouble was, one watch company in particular wasn’t keen on his unlicensed tinkering, believing that in pimping their watches his actions amounted to counterfeiting. (I pulled the interview, you’ll understand, for fear of becoming not in the magazine game myself.)

How times change. In the years since that hastily rejigged flatplan, ‘customisation’ has become one of the most parroted buzzwords in watches – ‘bespoke’ and ‘limited edition’ now held up as signifiers of true ‘luxury’ (another utterly worn-out word that this magazine likes to think it at least attempts to wrestle back from the point of bastardisation).

Not long after the accused watch fiddler agreed to stop toying with the plaintiff’s timepieces, he was approached by another, more forward-thinking face in Swiss timekeeping. Famed as something of a horologic clairvoyant, this watch boss had been looking into his crystals, and invited our almost-interviewee to collaborate with the portfolio of big-name brands under his then control. Other prominent dial names followed.

If you’re into your watches, you’ll know that these days the customiser-in-chief of whom we speak – routinely referred to as the ‘King of Customisation’ in magazine interviews, although not in the piece we eventually ran (we like to avoid such low-hanging monikers) – is doing even better for himself, thank you very much.

There was a time, not long ago, when companies in the business of customising cars were held in similar disregard. When po-faced automotive executives gave wide birth to anyone mongrelising their cars with body kits and airfoils and matt black paint jobs. The Buckhurst Hill look, if you will. Well, how times change.

Torsten Müller-Ötvös, CEO of Rolls-Royce from 2010 until 2023, and a man sometimes referred to as the hyphen in the marque’s name, was leaving a function at Beverly Hills’ SLS Hotel when up pulled a blinged-out Phantom Drophead coupé. After introducing himself, Müller-Ötvös got speaking to the car’s owner, a plastic surgeon. The two went for dinner. By ‘murdering out’ his Phantom, the surgeon is said to have explained, he’d afforded himself an ‘alter-ego’. The conversation must have piqued something in Müller-Ötvös, because, on his return to Europe, he approached his bosses at BMW, Rolls-Royce’s owner, with a pitch.

It took some convincing, goes the story, but eventually Müller-Ötvös persuaded his paymasters that the plastic-surgeon-by-day/Bruce-Wayne-by-night market was a demographic the company had been overlooking for far too long. And so, in 2016, Rolls-Royce began pimping its own rides.

Targeted at people who understand blockchains and wear clothes with logos on them, the Black Badge programme allowed clients to personalise their cars via bespoke paint jobs, custom interiors and aggressively-tuned engines. First, Rolls-Royce allowed customers to modify the Wraith and Ghost. Then, in 2017, the Dawn. Followed, in 2019, by the Cullinan (every model, that is, except the limousine-aping Phantom and all-electric Spectre). Today, the marque says its Black Badge arm accounts for almost 30 per cent of worldwide commissions. (Interestingly, Rolls-Royce’s average customer age is now younger than at stablemate, Mini.)

To demonstrate the extent to which it’s now possible to personalise a Rolls-Royce, earlier this year the Goodwood-headquartered manufacturer debuted the Black Badge Ghost ‘London City Lights’.

The majority of Black Badge clients, says a press release, skip the 44,000 colours from which they can choose, and plump simply for ‘Black’ (Rolls-Royce’s ‘Black’ is, in fairness, the darkest, and heaviest, paint in the game). To highlight that other colours are available, you assume, the Rolls-Royce Black Badge Ghost London City Lights comes in ‘Burnout Grey’. Perhaps a game of word association was played. ‘London.’ ‘Grey.’ And ended there. Whatever the reason, it’s a miserable colour – not dissimilar to England’s ’96 away kit, or the cladding you might see on an architecturally-bereft new mid-rise. John Major might like it, but you suspect the Black Badge isn’t aimed at One-Nation Conservatives.

Along the outside of the motor runs a thin line of Turchese, a kind of neon turquoise, which might look good in a video game. Or in Miami. Since 2020, Rolls-Royce has invited clients to customise the panel above their glove compartment. In the Rolls-Royce Black Badge Ghost London City Lights, a constellation of fibre-optic stars map the course of the Thames. They light up when you open the cabin, and fade to black once you switch off the engine. Unfortunately, they can’t draw your attention away from a line of leather trim in the same chintzy neon turquoise.

Call me dim, other people have, but I’ve never really understood the point of the Ghost. They call it the ‘baby Rolls’. But it’s massive. Longer than a Range Rover. Wider, too. They say it’s not a car for being chauffeured in, because that’s what the Phantom’s for. But it’s not a sports car, either, for that’s the three-door, all-electric Spectre. If you’re looking for a Roller to thrash about in, you buy a second-hand Wraith (the fastest car the marque has ever made) or a convertible Dawn (both models were discontinued last year) for a fraction of the price.

The Ghost, as we know, exists simply to be a more affordable Phantom, the world’s most luxurious people carrier. But have you ever been ferried in the back of one? Buttock massages aside, it’s not much fun. The seats are too high, the roof is too low and, because Rolls had to make the car smaller to make it cheaper, the windows are in the wrong place. Instead of being met by a pane of glass when you turn your head, you’re face-to-face with a pillar. It gives you a headache. It feels, somehow, implausibly, claustrophobic.

Better to be up front, then, in the driver’s seat. From where the decision to Black Badge your Ghost makes a lot more sense. The problem with getting a third party to pimp your Roller, other than identifying you as someone who has a pair of concrete lions at the end of your gated driveway, is that most outfits, after messing with your wheels and fiddling with your aerodynamics, don’t tinker with what’s under the bonnet. Or adjust the steering. Or change the suspension. So you end up with something that looks like the Batmobile and handles like a chest of drawers.

The benefit of going through the Black Badge team is that the team at Goodwood will perform more than just a facelift. The company’s ‘off-the-shelf’ Ghost is powered by a 6.75-litre V12 engine. It produces 563 horsepower and 850NM of torque. The Black Badge Ghost uses the same engine but it’s been tuned to provide an extra 29 horsepower and a further 50NM of torque. The drivetrain and chassis have also been re-engineered to cope with all the added grunting and twisting.

The result is that the Black Badge Ghost accelerates like an arrow, and corners like a bobsleigh. Rolls-Royce’s magic carpet ride is legendary. Here, thanks to the addition of roomier air springs, there’s an inconceivable lack of body roll. The car sticks to the road like a Werther’s Original to your teeth.

On the motorway, the car floats, gliding over bumps as if they were made of marshmallow. Gear shift speeds have been increased, so that acceleration augments in blinks of an eye. Rolls-Royce won’t officially say how quickly the Black Badge Ghost will max out at a restricted 155mph. But 0-60mph takes just 4.4 seconds. This is a car, remember, that weighs more than a standard shipping container.

Frankly, it’s all a little discombobulating. You have to remind yourself that you’re driving something the size of an apartment. Luckily, all it takes is the gentlest of touches on the brake pedal to bring things under control. At which point you’ll be reminded that weight control wasn’t exactly top of engineers’ list of priorities. And surprised that this beast of a machine can top itself without deploying drag chutes.

The Black Badge programme is marketed around the fact you can choose from a zillion colours and a million materials. That you can arrange the stars in your headliner to match the constellation above your third home. The real value, I’d argue, lies in what you can’t see (especially models sprayed Burnout Grey). What you can only feel in the driver’s seat. Which
is good news for anyone toying with the idea of commissioning a Black Badge. Because after pimping your Rolls, presumably the only person that’ll be sitting there is you.

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