Rolls-Royce Ghost chauffeur hire

The rear doors are hinged at the back, which means the aperture opens towards the front of the car and you step out facing forwards rather than swinging your legs round and pushing up. In ordinary clothes it is a small convenience. In a long coat, a dress or anything that does not fold neatly, it is the difference between stepping out and clambering out.

The doors close under power from a control by the seat or from the chauffeur’s position, so nobody has to reach back and haul a heavy door shut. That sounds like a detail and is the single feature passengers comment on most after a first journey in one.

Inside, the rear bench is broad, upright and firm in the way a good armchair is firm. It seats three at a push and two properly. There is no reclining function of the sort the Maybach has, and the Ghost does not pretend otherwise.

Airport work in a Ghost is more common than people assume, and it splits into two kinds. The first is somebody arriving for an occasion that starts the moment they land, where the car is part of the day rather than the way to it. The second is a long domestic leg from a regional airport, where the quiet cabin does the work.

The mechanics do not change for the car. The flight is tracked, the chauffeur waits inside the terminal with a name board, and the luggage is loaded rather than carried. What changes is where the car waits: a Ghost does not sit in a tight short-stay bay for an hour, so the collection is planned around a designated pick-up point.

One practical note. Three large cases is the honest ceiling, so a Ghost is a poor choice for a family coming home from three weeks away, and a good one for two people arriving with an overnight bag each and somewhere to be at eight.

A Ghost is driven slowly in the last hundred metres and unhurriedly everywhere else. There is a great deal of power available and using any noticeable fraction of it wastes the point of the car; the whole design intent is that speed arrives without the passenger being told about it. A chauffeur builds pace gradually and sheds it earlier than in any other car here.

The suspension reads the road ahead and adjusts, which means it is at its best when the car is held at a steady speed on a settled line. Constant small corrections work against it. On a motorway that translates into picking a lane and staying in it rather than moving up and back through traffic.

The coach doors change the stop. They open into the space in front of the door rather than behind, so the car has to be brought up with room ahead of the rear door and a clear kerb, not simply squeezed into a gap. Getting that right is the difference between a graceful exit and an awkward one.