Rolls Deep: 2018 Rolls-Royce Phantom Quiet Enough for Music Making
CARS.COM — It’s not necessarily something you’d notice right away, but soundproofing in a vehicle is a complex science. From materials composition to the architecture surrounding you as you drive to the tires you ride on, a quiet ride is a great selling point at the dealer but very much a battle of inches back at the factory — or, in the case of the new 2018 Rolls-Royce Phantom VIII, a battle rapper and millimeters.
If you’re still on the fence about purchasing a new Phantom and weren’t already convinced by “The Embrace” of its power-closing clamshell doors or the fact that it features a built-in art gallery, Rolls-Royce has now provided lack-of-sound proof that its new 6.75-liter twin-turbo V-12 is every bit “the silently beating heart” the British brand claims. To put the Phantom’s cabin quiet to the test, Rolls-Royce invited Mercury Prize-winning artist and U.K. grime bad boy Skepta to record a song from the backseat.
Doing Rolex sweeps up the Swiss Alps — because why would you ever test the silence of an interior at rush hour? — Skepta and company run the road on his laptop while the V-12’s 563 horsepower and 664 pounds-feet go unnoticed. Turning the Phantom’s cabin into the equivalent of a recording studio required engineers to develop an all-new, proprietary aluminum spaceframe dubbed the “Architecture of Luxury,” as well as more than 286 pounds of insulation and a two-layer, 6-millimeter glazing position for the glass. Also, a trip up the Swiss Alps.
What came of the trip was a new track unironically titled “Skepta RR,” which features exactly none of the hallmarks that make Skepta’s summer 2016 anthem “Shutdown” great — including a Bentley name-drop. Hopefully he remembered to tell that other ultraluxury British brand “Konnichiwa” before joining the Rolls-Royce family. To paraphrase Skepta’s own lyrics: Boy better know those brand switches can be tricky.
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