BEST OF BRITISH: Rolls-Royce Wraith Black Badge

Rolls-Royce even to this day is as old-money as the landed gentry, upper class and aristocratic lords and ladies who once patronised the brand in their droves.

While the German-owned British car-maker doesn't do nouveau riche darling – at least that's the image it likes to project – the reality of course is it can no longer afford to be discerning when it comes to people happy to splash out the best part of a million dollars on one of its cars.

Witness its new Black Badge sub-brand, created to actively seek out the self-made millionaires, dot-com billionaires and occasional oligarch or two.

The complete lack of wood and chrome bright-work is shocking at first, but it's the smoked Spirit of Ecstasy that will have elderly Rolls-Royce owners screaming "sacrilege" as you silently glide past.

Of course, there's nothing to fear from those going Black.

The sub-brand is not the work of some $1000-an-hour marketing agency, but something Rolls' very own customers have been doing for years.

It's also why, thanks to its bespoke department, in the last five years the average age of Rolls owners has tumbled eight years to a positively sprightly 45 years old.

Black Badge will lower this even further says, Rolls-Royce.

Revealing the Black Badge Wraith and Ghost earlier this year at March's Geneva motor show, Rolls-Royce is at pains to stress its new, more youthful sub-brand is far more than just a colour but more of an attitude that, until now, has been alien at the Goodwood-based car-maker.

Hence the complete absence of the usual walnut interior clichés, but the same level of craftsmanship.

Instead of the wood there's a 22-layer carbon-fibre fascia that has had an aluminium thread, just 0.1mm thick, weaved up horizontally through the strands of carbon.

In the flesh, it's enchanting and looks like something you might find in the jewel-like interior of a Pagani – except nobody else has this technology, the car-maker claims.

Featuring a cobalt blue and black leather, the darker interior perfectly encapsulates the menacing, sportier feel.

Rolls-Royce says the beauty of its Black Badge treatment goes more than skin deep and was created to make these model the most dynamic Rollers of all time.

But before you start thinking Rolls-Royce has created a Ferrari F12 rival, trading the brand's famous 'Magic Carpet Ride' for ultimate body control was never an option.

Instead, the adaptive dampers are now more reactive than the standard car's. The eight-speed automatic now comes with shorter ratios and is that little bit keener to hold onto gears, shifting between 200-500rpm later, while reacting quicker to throttle inputs.

Under the bonnet, the Wraith comes with 70Nm more torque, although power from the twin-turbo 6.6-litre V12 remains capped at 465kW.

Performance improves, nonetheless, from the extra torque shaving a single 10th of a second off the 0-100km/h acceleration time, which is now 4.3 seconds.

Larger brake discs have been added to cope with the younger owner's "more exuberant" driving style.

For the first time in the firm's history the Wraith also comes close to having something approaching a 'sport' mode. Stab the 'Low' button on the transmission wand selector and the throttle becomes more responsive.

Steering weight is said to be meatier than the feather-light weighting that both the Wraith and Ghost possess.

Prices have yet to be announced for the Black Badge models in Australia but it's thought they will attract a premium of around $75,000 on top the Wraith's already substantial $645,000 list price.

It sounds a lot but most Australian buyers already splash out around $100,000 to personalise their Rollers, so it's unlikely to scare them. Quite the opposite in fact.