ROLLS-ROYCE SPECTRE BLACK BADGE

How does 650bhp super-coupé feel on British roads?

- RICHARD LANE

Parcmotor Castellolí is a motorcycle circuit carved into a Spanish mountain. Not a place where you would expect a new three-tonne Rolls-Royce to be thrust upon the press, but that scenario is exactly what awaited Matt Prior when he headed off to drive the new Black Badge Spectre in February.

Rolls-Royce meets race track: it's perverse, but sometimes you have to prove your bear can dance.

With its recent line of 'subversive' Black Badge variants, the maker of the world's most lavish cars is shimmying into a more athletic space. It isn't looking to park its tanks on Bentley's lawn here, but petrol Black Badge models swap cogs more dexterously than the standard versions while having a bit more power, more resolute steering and tauter body control. Subtly keener machines, they're supposed to inject some intent into the underappreciated, silken driver appeal of modern Rolls-Royces. They are, in a word seldom uttered in the corridors of Goodwood, sportier.

The Spectre is the firm's bestseller and an interesting subject for Black Badging. There's less obvious scope for mechanical tweakery here, but the car nevertheless lends itself to Black Badge treatment more readily than its range-mates. It's a coupé and intrinsically sporty.

It's also an EV, with a 120kWh, dual-motor powertrain that can provide accelerator response as crisp as Rolls-Royce's engineers dare calibrate it and that also yields a very low centre of gravity.

This means the Spectre has fairly serious, natural dynamic potential.

This fact is underscored by the Black Badge version being the most powerful Rolls-Royce in history.