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The Rolls-Royce Black Badge turns ‘murdering out’ into an elegant art form

Rolls-Royce

A Rolls-Royce can be customized — made bespoke, in RR-speak — in a nearly infinite number of ways.

From custom paint and leather colors to the starlight headliner (which can be built to illuminate the night sky of a particular day and time), nearly anything is possible. But sometimes even the standard blank slate isn't enough for Rolls-Royce's most demanding customers.

That's why the company has dropped the blank slate for a black slate, appropriately called the Rolls-Royce Black Badge.

In typical Rolls fashion, the press release is chock full of absurdism, saying Black Badge was created for the "darker, more assertive, confident and demanding aesthetic" of a certain breed of customer. "Disruptors" that are "driven by their restless spirits to change the world in their own way."

And what these people want is a blacked-out rolls-royce

According to Rolls-Royce, they're a group of "young, self-empowered, self-confident rule-breakers" that "engage with the night... go where it leads, and take all it has to offer as their just reward."

And these people, apparently, want a blacked-out Rolls-Royce.

It's available on the smaller Ghost sedan or the two-door Wraith — the Phantom (which is about to get revamped) and Dawn droptop are left out of the fun, for now — and it includes a number of custom visual elements that will make a Black Badge Rolls stand out from the rest. The Spirit of Ecstasy figuring on the front of the bonnet now has a high-gloss black look, matching the new silver-on-black Double R badge on the front.

Chrome surfaces like the front grille surround, boot lid finisher, and exhaust pipes have all darkened. New composite carbon fiber and alloy wheels, which took four years to develop, include 22 layers of carbon fiber, folded back on themselves at the outer edge of the rim.

Rolls-Royce says the black paint is the deepest, darkest black "ever seen on a production car surface." The interior has a new aluminum-threaded carbon fiber (with threads 0.014mm in diameter), which is covered with six coats of lacquer, cured for 72 hours, and hand-polished.

Basically the craftsmen and women at Rolls-Royce's Goodwood production facility have turned "murdering out" a ride into an art form.

Both the looks and the power have been beefed up

And it's not just the looks that have been juiced. The Ghost Black Badge gets an additional 40 horsepower over the regular version, and a tweaked transmission map gives "an added sense of urgency" in how the power gets delivered. Gears are held longer, and downshifts are easier to provoke when accelerating. The Wraith Black Badge gets similar tweaks. Oh, and the brakes are buffed too, gaining an extra inch on the front discs of both versions.

Pricing isn't disclosed, but expect the Black Badge to add a hefty premium to the already pricey Wraith and Ghost, both of which are pushing $300,000 with minimal options fitted.

All we know is, the Black Badge is gorgeous as hell.

Rolls-Royce Black Badge Gallery

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