Published:
9 July 2014It has been a little while since Rolls-Royce disclosed only that a model’s power and performance were “adequate”. These days, it is confident to suggest that the Wraith’s 624bhp is sufficient to propel it to 60mph in 4.4sec, despite a kerb weight of 2435kg.
Our performance tests are stricter than most – completed two up and with plenty of fuel aboard – so there is no shame in the fact that, in our hands, the Wraith wanted 4.6sec to reach 60mph.
Quite the opposite, in fact. Despite having no launch control (unseemly), this is a car that reaches 60mph just 0.2sec after an Audi RS4 and has pulled 0.3sec ahead of the Audi before 100mph, a yardstick that it dispatches in 10 seconds dead.
That it does so is mildly surprising. That it does so with so little drama – a Bentley Continental GT is almost identically fast but makes a deal more racket proving it – is the Wraith’s calling card.
Things are more vocal here than in a Rolls-Royce Phantom – especially if you push the Low button on the gearlever, effectively doing what Sport would do on most auto shifts, and selecting a lower gear.
Even so, though, it’s no more or less audible than you’d expect any Rolls-Royce engine to be. Rolls has pitched the Wraith right where it should be.
We suspect that you’d spend even more time in Low were it not for a novel feature of the Wraith's eight-speed ZF auto, which monitors the sat-nav’s reading of the road ahead and selects an appropriate gear to cater for it.
