2008 Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe Test Drive

Above It All

The imperturbable Rolls-Royce Drophead Coupe provides a 'waftable' ride, even with a heavy right foot.

With the top down, driving the all-new Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe feels like your own private ticker-tape parade.

It’s impossible sometimes to refrain from waving to people as you go by, whether or not they wave first (they often do). Even with nobody around, it’s hard to keep a grin off your face.

A day of test-driving the Drophead Coupe recently, on the steep, narrow curves of Tuscany, plus some good company, produced sore grinning muscles.

The car stays remarkably flat in the curves, which is amazing considering its size. Its gross vehicle weight, the weight of the loaded vehicle including passengers, is 6,724 pounds, about the same as a Range Rover SUV. And there’s a long, long hood in front of you.

But the Drophead Coupe shrugged off even erratic driving — like if you hit the brakes and swoop to the side of the road to check the map, or suddenly back up the autostrada on-ramp, or encounter a phalanx of cyclists over the next rise. (In Italian driving, it pays to expect the unexpected.) It was impossible to upset the car.

Rolls-Royce calls that quality “waftability,” particularly when it comes to engines, said Bob Austin, communications manager for Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, responsible for marketing, advertising and public relations. That is, the Rolls-Royce customer “wafts” from point A to point B quietly, without having to trouble themselves.

In the Drophead Coupe, a 6.75-liter V12 does the wafting. The powerful engine was so quiet that even in a silent, dusty parking lot in the countryside, more than one test-driver tried to start an engine that was already running.

The dictionary defines waft as, “to move or go lightly on, or as if on, a buoyant medium.”

That’s a good description of how the Drophead Coupe feels driving down the road, especially from the passenger seat or in the back. But it’s no land yacht — despite options purposely modeled after yachts, like a teakwood deck to cover the convertible top when it’s down.

From the driver’s seat, the car’s poise and control emerge, and it loses that initial, floaty feel. Enter a curve with what feels like a bit too much speed, and your gut says the car will lean excessively. Through the curve, your eyes tell you it’s almost flat. The disconnect takes some getting used to, but after a few times, your confidence grows.

U.S. sales of the Drophead Coupe begin in September. Dealers already have orders for almost two years' worth of production, at a rate of about 200 cars a year.

Some of those orders are duplicates from one individual placing orders at multiple dealerships, in hopes of getting a car sooner. And some are brokers who will resell the cars. In short, enough money can find a car faster than two years from now, but it will certainly be more than the $412,000 suggested retail price (including the $3,000 gas-guzzler tax and $2,000 delivery charge).