Ghost was designed to be free from superfluous design, super connected and agile. However, among Ghost clients worldwide, a rebellious subset called for a more subversive personality; Black Badge Ghost.
Clients are free to select any of the marque’s 44,000 ‘ready-to-wear’ colours or create their own entirely unique Bespoke hue. However, the overwhelming majority of women and men who requested this darker expression of Ghost have selected the signature Black. To create what is the motor car industry’s darkest black, 100lbs (45kg) of paint is atomised and applied to an electrostatically charged body in white before being oven dried. Black Badge Ghost then receives two layers of clear coat before being hand-polished by a team of four craftsman over many hours to produce the marque’s signature high-gloss piano finish. All traditional chrome work is replaced by an advanced dark chroming technique.
The exterior is complemented by Bespoke 21-inch composite wheels. Designed in the Black Badge house style and reserved for Black Badge Ghost, the barrel of each wheel is made up of 22 layers of carbon fibre laid on three axes, then folded back on themselves at the outer edges of the rim, forming a total of 44 layers of carbon fibre.
Ghost Black Badge’s more rebellious personality carries through to the interior, with black Bolivar wood veneer for the uppermost base layer. This forms a dark foundation for the Technical Fibre layers that follow, comprised of leaves woven from resin-coated carbon and contrasting metal-coated thread laid in a diamond pattern. These are applied by hand to the components in perfect alignment, creating a three-dimensional effect.
Air vent surrounds on the dashboard and in the rear cabin are darkened using physical vapour deposition, one of the few methods of colouring metal that ensures parts will not discolour or tarnish over time or through repeated use. The Black Badge Ghost timepiece design is beautifully simple: only the tips of the hands and the twelve, three, six and nine o’clock markers are picked out, in a subdued chrome finish, creating a remarkably minimal clock.
More than purely a set of design updates, Black Badge Ghost is imbued with a personality all of its own. Engineering qualities have been comprehensively re-engineered, including the fitting of more voluminous air springs to alleviate body roll under more assertive cornering.
The 6.75-litre twin-turbo V12 powerplant remains, but has been exploited to generate an extra 29PS, creating a total output of 600PS. The sense of a single infinite gear has also been dramatised with the addition of a further 50Nm of torque, for a total of 900Nm. The powertrain has also received Bespoke transmission and throttle treatments to further enhance the engine’s increased power reserves.
As with all products in the marque’s Black Badge portfolio, the ‘Low’ button situated on the gear selection stalk unlocks Black Badge Ghost’s full suite of technologies. This is asserted by the amplification of the engine through an entirely new exhaust system, subtly announcing its potency. All 900Nm of torque is available from just 1700rpm and, once underway in Low Mode, gearshift speeds are increased by 50% when the throttle is depressed to 90%, delivering Black Badge Ghost’s abundant power reserves with dramatic immediacy.
To bolster confidence when exploiting Black Badge Ghost, the braking bite point has been raised and pedal travel decreased. A new suite of bold high-temperature brake calliper paint colours has been developed in preparation for forthcoming Black Badge Ghost commissions.
Black Badge Ghost is available to commission now. For more information, please contact our sales team.
