CEO Who Bought India's 1st Rolls Royce Ghost Series II Explains Why He Bought It! [Video]

Venu Gopalakrishnan, the tech CEO from South India has recently been creating headlines by adding multi-crore vehicles to his garage. After spending 46 lakh rupees for a VIP number plate for his newly bought Urus Performante, he also added a Mercedes Benz G63 AMG and India's first Rolls Royce Ghost Series II Black Badge to his garage, finally topping it up with a BMW R1300 GSA! In a recent video shared on the channel Baiju N Nair, the CEO explains why he chose the Series II Ghost Black Badge over a Phantom. The reason would tell you how big an enthusiast the CEO is...

Venu Gopalakrishnan says that it was his dream to own a Rolls Royce. But unlike many Rolls owners, he wanted to drive around in it, rather than being chauffered around in style. So he wanted something that drives well and has good dynamics.

The Phantom is the company's flagship product. It is huge and ticks all the boxes in terms of luxury and comfort. The Phantom is, however, not your choice, if you're looking for a slick, powerful and fun-to-drive luxury sedan.

The Ghost Series II, on the other hand, gets a powerful engine and good road manners. It is the Rolls that you'd love driving fast and go on happy self-drive holidays in. This CEO seems to know this well. He feels the Phantom to be too huge to do spirited driving around winding roads. He further reiterates that this is a very personal observation.

Venu Gopalakrishnan was thus left with two choices- the Cullinan and the Ghost Series II. For him, a Rolls Royce is a car- a saloon, and not an SUV. Choosing between the two was thus easy.

Like many other owners, the CEO wanted his Rolls Royce to be as unique as possible. This urge brought him to the Black Badge. The carmaker offers extensive personalisation options on the Black Badge range, along with a meatier powertrain. Gopalakrishnan seems to have spent a lot of time in speccing the car. The Black Badge has a base price of Rs 10.52 Cr. The options chosen by this owner made it jump to Rs 16 Crores!

He explains the details of customisation he has done on the vehicle. From the exterior and interior colourways to the shades of the coachline, interior stitches, illuminated fascia and more- everything has been personalised. Interestingly, the colour of the Rolls Royce umbrella hasn't been customised on this spec.

The Black Badge also has a more capable powertrain than the regular Ghost. It houses the same 6.75L V12, twin-turbocharged petrol engine under its hood- but in a higher state of tune. This unit churns out 592bhp and 900Nm. The regular version has a lower 563bhp and 850Nm on offer.

The Black Badge comes with an 8-speed automatic gearbox. There is even a 'Low Mode' engaging which would facilitate spirited driving. It activates a shift strategy which enhances acceleration and throttle response. Plus, Rolls Royce has also given it better acoustic damping.

Gopalakrishnan also says that for some reason, he couldn't get the bespoke Rolls Royce audio specced on his car. He has, however, specced the starlight roof quite tastefully. Another interesting detail on this car is the carmaker's signature VIN plate. The rear seats remain the cream of any Rolls Royce. This owner seems to have chosen the three-seat configuration.

The Series II Ghost Black Badge also features the latest version of the Rolls Royce Spirit infotainment software and gets the pillar-to-pillar glass panel which the Phantom and Cullinan now come with. We can see these in the video as well. Another key highlight is that the car allows you to customise the digital instrument cluster's colour and match it with the exterior colourway.