2010 Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe

We discover that the Phantom drophead coupe goes faster than the stink of how rich you’d have to get to buy one.

It’s always been easy to make fun of a Rolls-Royce. “At 60 miles an hour, the loudest noise is from the ticking of the bomb planted by the IRA.” But drive a new Phantom drophead coupe and the wisecracks will, ahem, drop right out of your head. There is a 453-hp, 6.8-liter 48-valve V-12 making the car capable of zero to 60 in 5.5 seconds (much faster than the IRA moves these days) and producing a top speed of 148 miles per hour. Computer limitation keeps the Rolls from accelerating further. I did not quite reach limited velocity on the corduroy- and moon ­crater–textured squiggle of my local New Hampshire roads. Or, if I did, I’m not saying so within Google-reach of small-town police departments.