As gas prices soar, and pump-scalded car shoppers look to EVs to save their wallets, the super-super-rich have some fresh electric salvation of their own. Rolls-Royce has pulled the wraps off its latest model, and Project Nightingale will do little to tame accusations of utter excess amid cars with price tags most mortals can’t afford.
Profligacy comes as standard, of course, though even by Rolls-Royce standards this is a wild car. Fully-electric, it’s built on the same Architecture of Luxury spaceframe as the automaker’s flagship Phantom sedan. It’s also roughly the same size: a vast 18.9 feet in length. Only instead of the Phantom’s spacious two-row cabin, the droptop Project Nightingale splashes all its scale on seating for just two.
Rolls-Royce
It’s not even a huge interior, indeed, with Rolls-Royce saying that’s entirely by design. All the better to maximize hood and tail, each large enough to make the convertible’s 24-inch wheels — largest ever fitted to a production Rolls-Royce, no less — look relatively normal.
Hints of the past with a powertrain for today
Rolls-Royce name-checks the ‘EX’ experimental cars from the 1920s as part of the design inspiration for Project Nightingale, specifically the 16EX and 17EX models. Both based on the Phantom of their time, the sports-minded one-offs paired lightweight bodies with increased horsepower. Fast-forward to 2016, and the Rolls-Royce 103EX concept took an even more aggressive — and electric — approach to shedding heft, carving away much of the traditional bodywork.
Rolls-Royce
In comparison, Project Nightingale has fewer voids but no shortage of presence. Hints of 103EX’s sharply upright front fenders flank a grille and little else, the lights condensed into narrow vertical slices. Rolls-Royce describes it as a “sheer, monolithic aesthetic,” and the result is arguably at odds with a rear more akin to the super-exclusive Boat Tail of 2021. Somehow, though, it all works.
Rolls-Royce
Royce himself called the 16EX “a motor car with fizz.” The automaker isn’t saying quite how much “fizz” that Project Nightingale will have — technical details will be revealed closer to the first cars’ arrival in 2028 — though, given a Spectre packs 577 horsepower and 664 lb-ft of torque, it’s hard to imagine these even-more-exclusive EVs delivering less.
Not only can’t you afford it, you probably can’t get an invite
As always, it’s the detailing where things go wild. The trunk opens sideways, hinged like the lid of a grand piano; 10,500 embedded “stars” in the cabin glow in sinuous waves inspired by the birdsong of actual nightingales.
Rolls-Royce
Individual finishes will depend on the whims of the 100 wealthy owners invited by the automaker to buy each car, but Rolls-Royce says they’ll be limited to this first Coachbuild Collection rather than offered on anything so mainstream as a Cullinan or Ghost.
Rolls-Royce
If there’s a takeaway for the rest of us, perhaps it’s that electrification is indeed inevitable — even if it’s not environmental consideration which forces that issue. For most drivers now considering an EV, it’s the idea of trimming dependence on gasoline which appeals. For Rolls-Royce clients, long in thrall to the automaker’s vast 6.75-liter V12 engine, the conspicuous exclusivity of Project Nightingale will undoubtedly coax over even those stalwarts otherwise firmly committed to internal combustion.
Stephan is the sports journalist for the Maple Grove Report.
