Rolls-Royce Wraith Black Badge: Redefining millennial luxury

Spirited, entrepreneurial millennials are buying Rolls-Royces in surprisingly high numbers, prompting the esteemed British brand to make a special Black Badge version of its sportiest model the Wraith.

With younger buyers front of mind, the Rolls-Royce Wraith Black Badge is now available to cashed-up car lovers in Australia, where the super-luxury brand’s Global Client Sales Manager, Ian Grant, took time to chat to carsales.com.au about the dark-themed makeover of its most powerful vehicle.

“We had a much younger demographic and clientele coming through Rolls-Royce and individualisation was absolutely key,” Grant explained.

“So we looked at how we should do that and how we should repackage the cars to give them the option of going to that arguably younger or more aggressive look on the vehicle.”

The Rolls-Royce Wraith, a more traditional two-door driver’s car, was launched in 2013 at a time when Rolls-Royce saw an opportunity to take a ‘more risque’ position. The result was Black Badge.

“It’s subtle bits and pieces where the car is not yelling at you ‘I’m fast, I’m aggressive’. It’s kind of the gentleman’s fast car, if that makes sense. The subtle fast car,” clarified Grant.

In addition to subtle aesthetic changes, the Rolls-Royce Wraith Black Badge has a new sports exhaust system, larger brakes, quicker steering rack, updated gearbox and suspension tweaks.

Taking performance to new heights, the more powerful 6.6-litre twin-turbo V12 Wraith boasts 465kW and 870Nm -- up 70Nm on its derivative.

Those 624 horses will transport this 2.5-tonne of hand-crafted opulence to 100km/h in 4.5 seconds.

For the short time we piloted the Wraith on local roads we can tell you its power is plentiful. But it’s undoubtedly the Wraith’s poise and polish that best brings it all together. Once that door closes, that feeling of indestructible super-luxury superiority takes over.

In a move that feels more supercar than super-luxury, the Wraith Black Badge’s new exhaust system can be amplified. The ‘low’ button located on the column-mounted gearshift opens the valves for a more baritone sound, which is ‘reserved instead of raucous’, according to Rolls-Royce.

When we probed Grant about the typical Black Badge buyer, he said it was the rise of the young and prosperous entrepreneur that warranted the Wraith’s special-edition treatment.

“The average age today for the Rolls-Royce buyer is plus or minus 39 for this part of the world,” he revealed.

“It’s dropped dramatically from the mid to late 50s to where we are today. The pioneers of that change have been Wraith and Dawn as we move towards Cullinan.

“It [the Cullinan SUV] has been a very successful story for us, for the family purchaser. We are embracing how our customers are changing,” said Grant, who added there are absolutely no plans for a Black Badge Cullinan.

“That desire for the highest end of luxury in motor vehicles, particularly in Australia, is very relevant.” he added.

In this region, the first Wraith Black Badge buyer was a self-made entrepreneur from New Zealand. A woman, nonetheless. But smarts and money does not necessarily translate to frivolous buying, says Grant.

“I would say we have quite a split personality with our customers,” he proffered. “Yes, we have impulse buyers. But a much larger percentage of our customers want individualisation, and that takes time.”

Grant says staff can spend up to 10 months with one customer, creating the exact car of their dreams. And with 44,000 colour combinations alone, choosing can be difficult.

“We had one customer who had crushed diamonds in their paint. That cost was astronomical, to say the least,” Grant exclaimed.

With a product line-up that includes two-door and four-door models and now an SUV, customers have more Rolls-Royce to choose from. But why stop at one?

“Our customers aren’t buying their first car or the car for the garage, it’s normally part of five, six, 20 cars they already own and generally they are quite switched on petrol-heads, if that’s a fair comment. They know a lot about our cars,” claimed Grant.

While you take time to consider your life choices, also consider this: The Rolls-Royce Wraith Black Badge is priced from $735,000 (plus on road costs). The vehicle we drove had some options, rounding our ride up to $895,500.

If you believe what you read, we live in an age that shuns conspicuous consumption and banishes the openly ostentatious.

Perhaps the wealthy entrepreneurial millennials haven’t yet caught on.