Stealthy 2022 Rolls Royce Ghost Black Badge Wears 100 Lbs Of World’s Darkest Black Paint

In 2016 Rolls Royce began making a concerted effort to courter younger, cooler, self-confident clients with its new edgy Black Badge sub-brand, initially launched on the Wraith coupe and Ghost sedan.

Five years on Black Badge products account for more than one in every four Rolls Royces sold, and the Ghost, now in its second generation, has once again been given the stealthy Black Badge treatment.

Rolls says the Ghost Black Badge is designed to appeal to clients who want something discrete and free from any superfluous design. And as much as a car with a front end like the Parthenon and a Rolls Royce badge can be discreet, that’s exactly what it delivers. You can choose any of the company’s staggering 44,000 existing colours or choose your own, but most buyers will go for the model-specific black paint.

Claimed to be the darkest black available on a production car, it consists of 100 lbs (45 kg) of paint, which is atomised and applied to the electrostatically charged body before being covered with two coats layers of clear coat and polished by hand. The whole process takes up to five hours.

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The Spirit of Ecstasy mascot, radiator grille and interior brightwork all feature a dark finish, the 21-inch wheels are created from 44 layers of carbon fibre, and there are multiple appearances for the Black Badge’s Leminscate symbol, including on the illuminated fascia, where it appears next to 850 stars only available in darkness.

More Power Under The Hood To Go With That Blackest Black Paint Job

There’s more to the Ghost Black Badge than some fancy trim and paint work, however. The aluminium space frame body is suspended on bigger air springs to cut body roll, and the 6.75-liter twin-turbo V12 has been massaged to produce an extra 29 hp and 37 lb-ft. The 591 hp total is actually 12 hp down on the 2016 Ghost Black Label’s tally, but torque is up from 619 lb-ft to 664 lb-ft, dropping the zero to 60 mph time from 4.6 to 4.5 seconds.

Select “Low” via a button on the gear selector stalk and you’ll liberate a subtly bigger rumble from the new exhaust and slash shift speeds from the ZF gearbox by up to 50 percent under hard load. As you’d expect, your wallet will also have to withstand a serious load if you like the sound of the Ghost Black Badge package. Prices start at $393,500 (£249,500 in the UK) plus taxes.