#Rolls-royceWraith

Ever wanted the luxurious accommodation of a Rolls-Royce, without the stodgy roofline and pesky cargo limitations of a coupe? Well Carat Duchatelet has just the car for you.

Presenting the Rolls-Royce Wraith Silver Spectre, your personal shooting brake.

There’s a running joke among automotive journalists that suggests the ideal car is a brown wagon with a manual transmission.

It’s a joke grounded in reality – many journos would actually love a brown wagon, preferably with a manual. The only reason most automotive scribes aren’t buying the few wagons on the market – in brown or any color, regardless of gearbox – is because very few of us can afford any of the offerings on the market.

“Rolls-Royce sold 4,000 cars last year.”

Carlos, a handsome, Cuban gentleman sitting across from me wanted to make sure that I understood this fact. He said it so intensely that I never even thought to question his number ( which was accurate). “Four thousand. That’s it. Do you know how many of them were sold to people on my street?”

I shook my head.

“Six.” He leaned back in his chair for dramatic effect, puffing on a cigar that had been handcrafted by one of Castro’s own private cigar maker’s proteges. “Six. That’s why I have to have the latest one. That’s why I have my friend, Manuel, looking for a very specific car for me.”

While designing top-dollar luxury cars was a rare success during my year at CCS, it’s gotta be tough to get these into production. Consider competition from lower-rung manufacturers, namely those parent companies owning the likes of Rolls Royce. How much shared engineering is forced upon them? What financial (beancounting) and legal (pedestrian safety, carbon emission) design constraints are forced upon the uber-luxury Transportation Designer?

Design directives get muddy in any vehicle, yet weak design is intolerable at a $354,000 price tag.

As part of TTAC’s reboot, we promised you, the readers, many things. One of them was “no more luxury car puff pieces”. Jack and I had every intention of adhering to this rule as well, until our staff email inbox received a message from Rolls Royce Motorcars, asking us to come drive the all-new Wraith.

“Go on the program,” said Jack, “and imagine that you are reviewing a Camry”.