ROLLS-ROYCE SPECTRE

The first electric car to wear a pantheon grille melds core values with modernity

- WORDS ALASTAIR CLEMENTS PHOTOGRAPHY MAX EDLESTON

Electric vehicles don't so much divide opinion among C&SC readers as unify them in opposition, judging by our mailbag. So ready the tar and feathers, because now the EV grip has taken hold of one of our sacred cows...

Yet few are better suited to electrification than Rolls-Royce, which has spent more than a century trying to replicate the talents of an electric motor in its engines: effortless, instant torque and whispering refinement. It doesn’t take long behind the huge wheel to find that the way this car makes progress is uncanny. Turn off the ‘Rolls-Royce Sound’ and it’s eerie, as nearly three tonnes of car gathers pace at an alarming rate in silence, even the echo of your voice absorbed by the rich soft furnishings.