If stories are your thing, you’ll love the way Rolls-Royce puts it, be it their special editions or complete bespoke ones. “Black Badge is Rolls-Royce’s response to a small and select group of clients who have asked the marque for cars with specific, focused characteristics that reflect their different take on life, success and the luxury they consume. These people choose to define themselves differently from their wider social group; a subset within a subset.
For over a century, such individuals, possessed of a dark and restless spirit, have been drawn to Rolls-Royce’s unique allure.” After Wraith and Ghost, the Dawn Black Badge is also targeted at the young entrepreneurs.
The paintwork is a deep intense shade of black. Multiple layers of paint and lacquer have been fastidiously applied and hand-polished in a process that amounts to the most exhaustive painting and polishing process ever used for a solid paint color. The result clothes Dawn’s sensuous lines in the deepest, darkest and most intense black to ever grace a production car surface. The roof, which opens in a ‘Silent Ballet’ to allow in the sounds of the night, is also only available in black canvas, whilst the rear deck is finished in black leather.
The Spirit of Ecstasy is finished in black chrome. The front grille surround, boot lid finisher, exhaust pipes, and ‘Double R’ badges, all get black treatment. On the inside, threads of aircraft-grade aluminium, a delicate 0.014 m in diameter, are woven together and then bonded in carbon fibre. Surfaces are then finished with six coats of lacquer before being left to cure for 72 hours and hand-polished to a mirror finish.
Higher levels of exquisite Black leather are accented boldly with Mandarin highlights, including a strip of orange highlight which encircles the cabin at hip-height, evocative of the sunset before the passengers are immersed in darkness.
A final touch, again, in a nod to one of Rolls-Royce’s pioneer patrons, Sir Malcolm Campbell, finishes the rear interior space. His famous ‘Infinity’ rating logo beautifully embroidered into the car’s rear waterfall, gives a subtle nod to a man very much possessed of the restless spirit that so defines the Black Badge attitude.
Dawn’s 6.6-litre twin-turbo V12 generates an extra 30 bhp over the car’s already ample 563 bhp, bringing the total to 593 bhp. That sense of one infinite gear is also given bolder expression with the addition of a further 20 Nm of torque available from 1,500 rpm, bringing the total to 840 Nm. The engine is paired with a ZF 8-speed gearbox.
The Dawn Black Badge gets new brakes with an increase in diameter of one inch. The steering-rack has also been quickened and engineered for more feedback, added the official statement.
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