Jay Leno's 2024 Rolls-Royce Spectre - Jay Leno's Garage

Welcome to another episode of Jay Long's Garage. Today we're being visited by Automotive Royalty. No, I'm not talking about the Rolls Royce. I'm talking about Sir Jackie Stewart is sitting in today. Jackie, thanks for coming by. Oh, my pleasure. Excuse me. I thought I was keeping quiet. No, no, no. That's all right. No, that's very nice. Very happy to be here. Isn't that cool? Jackie Stewart's behind the garage. But anyway, let's get on with it. The car we're featuring today, the 2024 Rolls Royce Spectre. This is the first all electric Rolls Royce. I have seen probably 25 or 30 reviews of this car online. All good. All mostly done by automotive journalists or influencer YouTubers. I think I'm the first owner of one of these to do a review. So maybe I have a little different perspective. You know, every time I bought a car, it was based on performance. How does it handle? How fast was it? When I got the Tesla Plaid, I bought it because it was the fastest accelerating vehicle you could get at the time. The fact that you're saving the planet, it's an electric. And that's all nice, but I bought it primarily for performance. This is the first time I've ever bought an automobile based on comfort. And this is sort of the F1 of comfortable automobiles. It's fast enough. It's not as fast as Tesla. Certainly smoother, certainly quiet. I would harden to say this is probably the quietest automobile any company has ever produced. You know, I first drove an electric Rolls Royce back in 2011 when they had a few experimental cars running around. And they have one in California. They called me and I drove it at the time. Tesla had yet to really break through. So really were no to the idea electric Rolls Royce. What's that 50, 50 years away, 60 years away? Well, no, just a decade. Because Rolls Royce takes their time. They're not the kind of company that jumps into something. They wait to see how it's accepted. You know, the fun thing I like about these automobiles is the build quality. You just don't get this build quality in most automobiles. Even most high-end automobiles I don't ever think are built to this standard. You know, I bought my first Bentley Turbo R, which when I bought it back in 89, it was basically a Rolls Royce with a turbo. And I'm still driving it. And about six months ago, my electric seat broke. So I said, let me take it apart and see if I can fix it. And as I took it apart, I was amazed at the wiring loom, how nicely everything. You know, a lot of times, especially Italian guys, you take a seat out and it looks like the spaghetti factory. It's just wires all over the place. Everything was in conduits. Everything had a screw with a cadmium plated washer locking it. I mean, it was such a pleasure to take apart and fix and replace because the Bentleys have a sort of a lifetime battery in the seat. But I've been driving mine for 40 years. So the battery went out. So I had to replace the battery, not the motor. And you have to kind of open the case up and solder it in and all that kind of stuff. But just the build quality of that was so impressive. And I'm still driving after 40 years. So it made me buy this one because people may be surprised. Why would I buy a Rolls Royce? I like single focus automobiles like with performance cars. It's performance. But with luxury cars, it's luxury. And this, being electric, makes it just about the quietest automobile you could possibly imagine. This is the definition of road-hugging weight. This thing is almost 6,500 pounds. And a lot of that is insulation to keep out the sound. And you'll find out when we're driving just how quiet it is. Let me bring a gentleman in who helped me kind of spec this car. Jerry, come on. Jerry, come on in. You're our Rolls Royce representative. Hey, Jay. How are you doing? Good to see you. Pleasure to be here. Good to see you. You know, it's interesting. When I got this, I'd seen all different colors. Because I used to work for Rolls Royce. I worked for Rolls Royce. When I worked for the company in 69, 70 as a student, they didn't transport cars. The cars would come into Port Elizabeth on a ship. They would unload them. And they would be driven to Philadelphia, New York, West Palm Beach, whatever. And our dealership was in Boston. So I'd go down, and I would pick up the cars and drive them up the coast. And when the customer would say, why does this have 230 miles? Oh, those are road test miles. None of the factory. Those are to make sure they're, you know. But it's just a 19-year-old kid. In fact, I'll tell you kind of a funny story. We had a lot of customers who liked to buy cars for cash in a bag. So one guy, here's how long ago it was. The most expensive Rolls Royce you could buy in 69, 70 was $29,900. So this guy with taxes, he bought a Corniche, one of the first Corniches. It was $35,000. So I used to go down, take it off the boat, clean it up a little bit, deliver it to this guy, get the $35,000 in cash, take a cab back to Port Elizabeth, get another Rolls Royce and drive it up. So that's what I did. So I picked up the second Rolls Royce. I was a young comedian starting my career, you know. I said, boy, I want to go to one of the clubs in New York, see if I could do a set, you know. So I drove through New York and I pulled up in front of the club in a Rolls Royce. And you don't know, who's this guy with a Rolls Royce? I said, can I go on? He goes, yeah, sure, sure. So I did. I put the $35,000 in a bag on the piano. I did my set. I had my little tape recorder. Told my jokes. Got big laughs. Oh, so excited. You know, I got in the car. I'm driving. Listen to the tape. Oh, where the laughs were. And I hit the first toll booth in Canada. I go, where's the bag? I left the bag on the piano with the $35,000 in it. And I turn the car around and pull back. It's now 1 o'clock in the morning. I walk in the club. There's going to be half a dozen people, drunk, sitting there. A female singer. And I see the bag on the piano. I go, oh, I forgot my lunch. I forgot my lunch. Thank you. And I start counting the money. I go, OK, sitting on Ninth Avenue in a Rolls Royce, counting $35,000 in a bag at 1.30 in the morning. That's not too bright either. So let me just, I'll assume it's all here. But I would just be getting out of jail now if that bag had not been there. But that's another whole story. Anyway, Jay, thanks for coming. Here we go. Where do we start? Oh, I told you, picking a color. Don't do what I did. I said, let me call the designers and see what they think is the best. So I go, oh, Jay, it's the Morganite. It's like a pink with a lavender trim. I go, OK, I don't want pink with lavender. So I got black on black, same as I did with my Turbo Art. And I love it. This is a diamond black, which is a fantastic color. And Jay, it hasn't turned out too badly for you, has it? No. From a Rolls Royce to a Rolls Royce. Right, right. It's good. You know, it was fun with you working on colors. Because we did kind of come in thinking about what colors you would want. Do you want blue? Do you want, you know, what it might be? But at one point in our conversation, you said, look, I want something classic black. And what's beautiful is that the design of Spectre, with all these broad planes on the bonnet, on the roof, and the long lines, it looks so, it's just a hot black car. It looks really beautiful. Well, it looks like something Bruce Wayne would drive as he's going through Gotham. You know, it looks like a concept coupe that they would never build. And that's why I thought it was so fascinating. The fact that it has an aero of .25, which is pretty amazing. It's truly a modern Rolls Royce is what I like about it. It's absolutely, I mean, it's definitely a new look. You know, look, I want to start out with one thing. When you talk about the aerodynamics, you know, let's not forget that we've spent time making it look like a Rolls Royce, but it also has to be a modern Rolls Royce. This is the first Rolls Royce to sport the newest iteration of the Spirit of Ecstasy, which is only our second. And believe it or not, she was redesigned to help provide that .25 aerodynamic, the coefficient drag. This is the most aerodynamic Rolls Royce that's ever been built. It's not a hard, you know, it's not a high bar, but at .25, this is among the most aerodynamic cars on the road. For a car that is 18 feet long, you know, over about five feet tall, more than seven feet wide, that's quite a feat. Well, the thing, being a half Scotsman like Jackie Stewart, I think, what's the maintenance going to be, you know? And this, I got it in 2026. They want me to bring it in to change the brake fluid. That's it. Yeah, there's virtually no maintenance, even on an internal combustion on the existing Rolls Royce. The maintenance is included, but it's not that complicated. With it being electric, you have less, you know, you're the mechanic. You know, there's less parts and less things to go wrong. Yes, you are going to have to take care of, you know, your brakes. You want to make sure that everything's lubricated and working properly. But really, what's great about Spectrum, it's just, to come back to what you said, is it is absolutely a Rolls Royce. It's luxury. It's quiet. It's a great car to drive. I love the fact that there are no choices. There's no track mode, comfort mode. You know, I just want to drive. You sometimes just want to get in and drive a big, comfortable car. You know, I have a lot of what my wife calls, ow, my hair cars. You know, you're driving, ow, my hair. Just slow down. No, close the window. Ow, my hair. You know, this is the perfect hair car. You take your days fine, no problem. Yeah, have you had a chance to take it out with four people? Actually use it? I haven't had four people in it yet. No, no. Because it's a real, true four-seater. Right, right. You know, it has that look of a sleek coupe. A lot of people are comparing it. At first look, like if we're not standing next to it, you might compare it and think Wraith, but when you see the size and, you know, it's just the mass of Spectre, you realize this is a big car. It's actually the spiritual successor to the Phantom Coupe. You know, it's interesting. I bought it because it's the two-door coupe, which is my favorite kind of car. I love the original Corniche two-door coupe. And to my generation, two-door coupes were the coolest. And when I talk to car dealers now, young people, 40 and under, they love four-doors. You know, four-door Charger with the big Hellcat motor in it. Right. Why get a four-door? Well, it's easier to get people. Well, that is true, you get people. Yeah, or even an SUV. I like single persons here. If I'm going to have a station wagon for that, coupe for going out to dinner, sports car to go, I don't want one that does all of those things. I don't get cars like the Lamborghini Urus or those kind of cars. I just, I'd rather have a proper Lamborghini and then get a station wagon. There's something very romantic about the line. You have the coupe, you've got the fastback here on Spectre. You can see there's a lot of romantic history in the design of Spectre. It's a very large car. It's a spiritual successor to the Phantom Coupe, but it has that beautiful long line fastback, and it really does, I remember when we were configuring your car, you mentioned it brought you back, particularly when you put it in black, it brought you back to memories of some beautiful cars, whether they're in the 30s and 50s. Well, you know, another reason I bought this was I used to work for Rolls-Royce, and I was the lot boy, put on license plates, doing all that kind of stuff. And I remember talking, David Plastow was the president in those days, and I remember thinking, I was working with a bunch of guys, they were older than me, and they did car detailing. And we would go to a rich guy's house and detail his four or five cars, Rolls, Mercedes, whatever. I was like 19, and I said, wouldn't it be great to be the guy that owns the cars? And they go, what? That's never going to happen. I go, well, why couldn't, wait, wait a minute, you're going to, I mean, they couldn't even dream about being successful. And I thought, really? I mean, it just, really? I mean, they just ragged on me for weeks about that. Yeah, you think someday he's going to, I go, why is that so impossible? It's America. You know, anything could happen, you know. And that's why, well, you know that owning a Rolls-Royce is, for you, is something personal. It's something you wanted. And what we find from a lot of our other owners is that it's part of something they wanted in their life. And there's no one reason you do it, but it is to celebrate success. We have a lot of people just starting off that are very successful. They've hit that achievement in their life. They want to celebrate it. And, you know, commissioning their Rolls-Royce is one way of celebrating that success. But see, I wanted black because I didn't want it to look like, look at me, I've arrived. Like when I tell, I have the hood, I have the emblem down, I just kind of sneak in. You can't. I like it really for what it is and the way it drives and what it represents, which is fun. And I bought this from Paul Rusnick. Rusnick, he's probably one of the oldest dealers, one of the earliest Porsche dealers. I bought my Carrera GT from him. Right. And when I, you know, it's a real dealership because when I got that car, two mechanics come over with the car in a flatbed, showed me how to service it, how to do all these kinds of things, which you're not going to get at a Ferrari dealership or a lot of these other ones, you know. And I thought I was so impressed. And I bought my Turbo R there and I had it serviced there for the last 40 years and that's why I bought this one. And then Paul is still around. Paul, I don't think he minds me saying how old he is. Paul, you're going to be, what, 91? Well, I'm on my way to be 91. I just celebrated my 90th. We went to his 90th birthday party. Yeah. Thank you for coming to my 90th. I see him going under that limbo bar. It's just unbelievable. No, it's a wonderful, all car dealerships would be like you because it's just such a pleasure to do it. And you know, the nice thing about when you buy one of these, you really don't have the quality control problems you don't get. There's a little rattle in the door. We'll bring it in next week. I mean, it really goes through inspection. I mean, yeah, I know they're stupid expensive. I know that. To me, when you love cars as much as I do, this is sort of the pinnacle. I don't know where you go from here. If you want to rationalize, you can go, well, it's half the price of a McLaren. Honey, we're saving money. It's half the price of the other car. Another reason, that story I just told about the guys picking on me for thinking I could be successful one day. Paul's story is pretty interesting, too. Now, you guys were refugees from what country? Well, I was born in Czechoslovakia. I came as a 14-year-old, yes. Right, right. So, I mean, you built your business. Absolutely, yes. And I said, you knew Max Hoffman? Yes, I did. Now, Max Hoffman is the man who gave us the Gullwing Mercedes, the Porsche Speedster, the BMW 507. He was an American car dealer who just loved European cars. And at the time, nobody had heard of any of those automobiles. And Mercedes-Benz did not want to build the Gullwing because they didn't think anybody would buy it. And Max said, I'll buy 1,200 of them if you build it. So he laid down the money to do that. They built it, and of course, it's the icon now. Same thing with Porsche, same thing with BMW. Sure. And you were in on the ground floor of all of that. Well, I started out in 1959 with my first dealership. Culver City. Right. Then I moved to Los Angeles on Crenshaw Boulevard, which was the car street in those days. And in 1966, I moved to Pasadena, bought a Chrysler dealership. And from then on, it just grew to be. But you started with European cars because that's what you do? Yes, absolutely. I mean, do you think it would be a hard sell in America, selling little 1,500cc cars and things like that? Well, in those days, if you drove a foreign car, MG or Jaguar or anything, and everybody would just wave as you passed by to each other because there was a small fraternity. Right. My dad would always say, you can't get parts for those foreign jobs. It was always a foreign job. That's what my dad would call it. Well, we can buy one of those foreign... You know, when I was a kid, my dad had a brother that was 20 years younger. My Uncle Tony. And he was an artist type. And he bought a Renault Dauphine, which is a little French car. It had a country horn, beep, beep, and a city horn, beep, beep. And he brought it up to my father. My father came up, what kind of car is this for a man to drive? It's not a man's car. What the hell is this thing with the little beep, beep? My father just couldn't understand. And, you know, Tony was very artistic. It was very funny. Just very funny. My dad always bought a big, you know, Cadillac. My dad used to call Cadillac the Rolls-Royce of automobiles. Like, oh, Pop, it can't be the Rolls-Royce of automobiles. Cadillac is Cadillac. Yeah, but it's like the Rolls-Royce. No, the Rolls-Royce is the Rolls-Royce. We have these ridiculous arguments all the time. It's very funny. But he's got a very good book out. What's the name of your book? Keeping Both Hands on a Wheel. Very apropos. If you like reading American immigrant success stories, I love it because my parents are immigrants and I love immigrants that succeed in America. It's a really good book. You should pick it up. Thank you. Very good. And Rolls-Royces have banner years now, aren't they? Well, we've had great years. Absolutely fabulous years. But we don't measure our success in volume. Now, granted, we've been delivering somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 commissions for the past three or four years. Last year was a record year. What's more important to us is each one of those cars is becoming more and more valuable. So it's not just about moving metal. We're not a car company from that perspective. For us, it's about making sure that every single Rolls-Royce is bespoke, it's personalized to the client, and that it has more and more value to that client. So, you know, your specter is this is the Jay Leno edition of Jay Leno's Rolls-Royce. Right. Okay? For us, that's what a banner year means. The more bespoke work we do makes us happier. We have the capacity to do that. We're actually expanding. We're in the process of expanding our factory. I hate calling it a factory. Our facility, our atelier in Goodwood. Not so much to build more units, deliver more cars. We're doing it so that every commission we can do more bespoke content, we can do more things like the Starlight Headliners, leather work, we can do more body work, we can do more interesting, bespoke exterior finishes. We've got a lot of things in the work from that perspective. Yeah, because when you think about it, when you buy an automobile now, there's not much you can do with it anymore. In the old days, you'd get the engine dress-up kit, and you'd put the Abarth exhaust system on, and you'd go, you can't do any of that anymore. So now you do color and trim and all those kind of things. There's a lot you can do. I mean, we actually do have a coach build division at Rolls-Royce where you can, but it's a very, very small part of the business, and these are very exclusive cars. We'll do two or three every couple years. It's quite a modern factory because it is an assembly line. It just moves a lot slower than other assembly lines. But the first time, when I bought my Bentley, I went to crew in 88, and they take me into the factory, and they show you, here's the hole where the bomb came through in 46, and they still have a tarp over it. So I go down to the, can I see the leather shop? Oh, so down at the leather shop, there's an old lady there, and there's a pot of tea. Whistling again. Hello, dearie. How are you? Hello, sweetheart. You bought a Rolls-Royce. Have you got it? Oh, yes, I have. Nice to meet you, lad. And she's sewing this leather. Hilarious. And that's beautiful. Yeah. That's part of heritage. We're lucky that when BMW took over Rolls-Royce and became the benefactor in 99, we were able to open up Goodwood, which is the home of Rolls-Royce. I was one of those people, very suspicious. What's this going to be? But I think BMW has been a good parent. I mean, they've done a wonderful job. They've kept it in England, so you get that sense of English leather and quality and all this kind of stuff. And it really is an extremely well-put-together automobile. What I said about my Bentley Turbo R, whatever I do, I'm amazed at just how well put together it is. It's a traditional body-on-chassis, very old-fashioned, but the last days of old technology are always superior to the first days of new technology. So with that Bentley Turbo R, it's just fantastic. I mean, it's such a pleasure to put the seats back in. I didn't have to get a power thing to break the nuts and bolts. Everything's just tight. And that's what's beautiful about Goodwood, is we have a heritage, there's history. People that are working in our bespoke woodshop, some of them are multi-generational woodworkers whose grandfathers worked on ships and yachts. We have people that are working in the leather shop. Now granted, our facilities are all brand new, all post-2000, but we also have that heritage of craftsmanship. There are more than one now, but we have a master painter who paints the coach lines. I believe he did this one. Yeah, he did this one too. This is Mark Kort. You know, I had a pinstriper guy come in and do my fire engine. And that's a whole different world. A guy shows up, got his little paint box, big bottle of scotch. Freehand, all the way down. The other side, the other way down. Does a little filigree, just passes out on the floor. Mark doesn't do that. No, no, this guy does. And then, okay, he sleeps for a couple hours, gets up, goes home, comes in the next day, fresh bottle of scotch, and finishes it all. But never, I mean, all freehand, everything. It's just amazing. I don't know how he could be drunk and do it. Well, painting, you know, my father was a firefighter, and I watched a number of firetrucks get painted. That's an art. I know, isn't it? Yeah. That's a total art. Yeah, it really is. Yeah, no, the factory is really something to see. It is, and it's, look, every Rolls-Royce motor car comes from England, and always will come from England. And, you know, you say we're having record years. Our objective is not to build more. It's not to build. We would love to have more clients, but, you know, I know that's always a debate in the luxury world. Oh, can we go from 6,000 to more? No, that's not even a discussion we're having at Rolls-Royce. But see, this is better than a summer house in Malibu. This is my summer house in Malibu. It's just so much fun to drive. It is so quiet. It's literally a concert hall. It's the best sound system I've ever heard in a car. Because, as I said, I've never bought a car because it was comfortable before. Most people do. I mean, how comfortable is it? I just bought it because it was fast, or it went around corners, or it stopped better. This just does. And there's only one setting. It's comfort. Sorry. So you don't get in thinking, well, should I try to? No. Don't get any tickets. Just sort of go along. There's the on setting or the off setting? Paul, thanks for coming by and being a part of this. I really appreciate it. Well, thank you, Jay. Thank you for your business. Oh, yeah. Thank you for choosing as your dealer? Well, I chose it because you guys do a great job. It was really fun. Everybody's very knowledgeable. They go in the parts department and know exactly what I'm talking about. So it's always been good. God, I've been a customer for 40 years. I know. And you'll still be there after I'm gone. Let's give it a shot, shall we? Let's go for a ride. Well, let's take a look at the inside. Well, that's actually my favorite part. Well, that's really what a Rolls Royce is all about. I mean, I have to admit, I'm not a touchscreen guy. I'm not a button guy. I like the fact that you have both in this. You have a touchscreen, which you can use. Or if you choose, you can use the buttons or when you get them, they're blank. They can be whatever you want. They can be to run the air conditioning, set the radio, whatever. So I pick a couple of stations for radio stations that I like. And it's just more tactile for me rather than, are you happy with this selection? Yes. Would you make this selection again? Yes, I would. You know, I mean, just the thing to drive you nuts. Is English your language? Yes, I will speak English. Well, you know, Jay, one of the things that is important when you're in the Rolls Royce is for it to be effortless. And then you just don't have to think about a lot of things. You mentioned that you like that there's not modes when you get in. You don't have to select. Is it a rainy day? Is it a Tuesday? And there's leaves on the ground? No, you start and you go. And that's it. We do have one mode we can look at a little bit later when we're driving, which is the regenerative mode, which has some function to it as well. But when you're inside a Rolls Royce, it's all about that cocooning feel. You should be relaxing. This is a place to come after you're working or to go out and enjoy yourself. You have all of the luxurious appointments. You have the leather. You have the wood. You have the metal. Everything's natural. Everything should be. It should be very soothing to you. I like early cars because of the wood and the craftsmanship and the leather. But I don't like the unreliability and the electrical weaknesses and all the other things. So this, you kind of get the combination of the two. You get the old school. It's like getting a handmade watch. I've got some mechanical watch on IWC, Breitling. I love just turning the... Just hearing that each click. It's a satisfying feel to me. I mean, touch is one of those things that we just seem to miss out on. Because when you hold something, like when you hit the vents here, the metal, they're not chrome-colored plastic. They're metal, and they have a nice ting-ting to them. I know it seems silly, but that's what I like. And that's why I buy these. That's the nature of a Rolls-Royce. It's to be authentic. I mean, you have... This is leather, and it is very precise. The people, our craftsmen that work on this leather, you'll have the same man or woman doing the entire interior. So they're doing all the stitching. The same person does all of the wood for all of the interior. And there's another thing that's really beautiful on Spectre. I think we've kind of taken it to another level, and that's the use of light, which is a very subtle way. One thing we don't like is... You said you don't want a lot of bells and whistles blaring at you. We don't like to have obtrusive luxury. We want that luxury. We want that ambiance in the car to be very mellow. And we have a few features that we've kind of pulled together beautifully. The designers have done just a great job on Spectre. I think everybody knows the iconic starlight headliner, which is... It's not a backlit with holes. You have 1,400 individual fiber-optic strands that are hand-put in, hand-cut. We've moved that now as an option as well onto the doors. Where on the doors and around the rear surround, you have nearly 5,000 lights just kind of enveloping you. Well, my favorite thing is the overhead lights. You can get them in the shape where the Constellation was when you were born. Yes. Like you're going... You know, I think Orion was a little over there. Maybe I'm wrong, but I remember as I came out of the womb looking up, I saw... I mean, how would you know what this is? You can just know that this is the Constellation that was shining over Goodwood, England when the first Goodwood Rolls-Royce rolled off the line. That's what we've chosen as the default. You know, Coco Chanel said, luxury is the opposite of vulgarity. You know, and it's a certain truth there. When we see something, we go, oh, that's a little too much. Oh, that's perfect. Yeah, I think... I mean, you've done a great job. I mean, this particular design of Spectre, it really does fit. You know, as I've been walking around your garage seeing what you have, it definitely fits. The color of the leather, the wood, and the finish, it's absolutely... it's very subtly cool. Right. I mean, there's no reason to have a car like this other than you just love automobiles, and this is the pinnacle of... In the modern age, it would be a handmade automobile. Look, Rolls-Royce are built on an assembly line. There's no totally hand... But it's an assembly line that moves very slowly, and I think each station is 38 minutes or something. Whereas in a normal factory, it might be 3 1⁄2, 4 minutes. Each station is as long as it takes to get it right. Yeah, it takes as long as it takes. You can stop it. And I think that's what makes it... It took about 12 weeks to build this car because I put the order in in December, and I got it at the end of March, you know, so that's about right. Yeah, yeah. Let's see. Now we have the console. What else do we have? What else are we missing here? Well, we were talking a little bit about the lights. When you talked about that authenticity and that throwback, I mean, we'll see when we start moving. We still keep a very simple instrument panel. We do have a digital instrument panel on Spectre, but it's very simple. It's that three circle that you've seen on Rolls-Royces for 100 years. Right, right. Where you have your speedometer, you have your power reserve, which is your very elegant way of knowing how much of the engine's powered. Right, right. And then you have your, on Spectre, it's how much charge and range you have, which is, you know, it's analogous to what your fuel level is. Oh, and of course, you have to have this. You have your... Yeah, every single Rolls-Royce motor car comes equipped with two. Don't the chauffeurs have a self-defense course where they teach them how to use this as a weapon? I say, get out, get out. Some guys come at you with 38 or 9 millimeters. You just pull this out. You're an umbrella pal. But they do, don't they have that? Well, there's a proper etiquette to using the umbrella. When it's raining, it can also, there's quite a few people, particularly here in Los Angeles, where it's used as a shield for the lady when she's exiting the car to avoid an inelegant exit. But again, the real fun part is how it just clicks in nicely. You talk about the sounds of a Rolls-Royce, and it is. When you do something, it definitely has that solid sound. When we hear the ping of the eyeball vent, these are all very important. These are just important parts of being in the compartment and knowing that it's high quality. And you have the heated and cooled seats. You have a massage function in each seat, which is nice. Of course. Yeah, this is very cool. But it's just, you know, it's just, to me, it makes me smile. It's a lot of fun. I know I'll get beaten up in the comments for buying a Rolls-Royce, but this was finally the reason I got one. I never got one before because I thought, I don't need another gas-guzzling V12. I've got all kinds of powerful engines here. But I like the fact that this is electric. I know a lot of people on this website hate electric, and I'm a communist now, and all this kind of stuff. But this is all about unique automobile experiences. And this is truly a unique one. This is a groundbreaking car for Rolls-Royce. And the fact that it is, you can drive this into any city center in Europe. You know, a lot of cities in Europe now, you cannot drive a gasoline car into the city. Or if you do, you pay $25 or $50 fee just to come in because it's a polluting automobile. This is something you're not subject to any of that. So, I mean, look, you're not saving the planet with these cars because there's not enough of them being made. But at least you're not making it worse. Jay, you know, the way we look at it is Spectre and every Rolls-Royce must be first a Rolls-Royce. Right, right. You have to have that experience. And then second, it must be a Rolls-Royce. It has to meet all the quality standards from our side. What the propulsion is is almost a secondary standpoint. See, Chrysler made this mistake in 1934. They built this top-of-the-line car, Imperial. In 1933, it had a big radiator with a thing on the front of it. And then for 1934, they did away with all that and they put what they called a waterfall grille. And people thought, well, it doesn't look like an Imperial. And it was a huge bomb. It was aerodynamic. It was really a fantastic automobile unibody. But it was the shock of the new. It was just, you know. And the next year, they had a grille and made it look like, you know. Well, let me ask you. I mean, when you look at the bonnet and you look at the grille, I mean, you've been looking at Rolls Royces for a few years. It looks like a Rolls Royce. And of course, you have all this. When you get in the back, you pull this up. Before we get in the back, it moves forward. It is. It is a real four-seater. Right, right. It's not a coupe with a faux two seats in the back. When you pull it back, then it comes back again. I challenge you to find three people and join you for an evening out. It's a wonderful ride. Yeah. Okay. You step on the brake and the door shuts. Well, and I have my own personal little door switch here. You know, these doors are almost five feet long. I know, I know. They're the longest doors we've ever made. Let's get properly set in. And I'm not going to... Don't forget to turn on the massage. Oh, you got that. Now, you hear the exterior hum while we're inside. Right. A very low-key external sound. I'm surprised they have a choice of two audio systems. Most people just say, well, give me the best one you have. Isn't that what most people usually do? Well, the bespoke audio system, it basically has two settings. Right. It lets you have what's an incredible audio system. We actually have a lot of musicians that choose that, the bespoke version, because it lets you either listen to the music as if the orchestra or the band is in front of you. Right. And then when you go to bespoke, it's as if you're sitting in the middle of the band. Oh, I see. So a lot of people that are really big audiophiles like that. It's just a different musical perspective. And a lot of musicians love it because that's where they're used to hearing the music. Right, right. As you can see, we're not shouting, we're not raising our voices here. I'm actually talking in the sound of a whisper just because it is so quiet. When you take a trip, it's just... You know, I was sitting in traffic and I looked in the rearview mirror and I saw a fire engine. Now, a lot of times here in L.A., the cops run without the siren because they don't want to tip off the criminals or whatever, you know. I said, boy, I never saw a fire truck run with just lights, you know. Then it pulled up next to me and I put the window down. Woo! Woo! I said, oh, he was running. I just didn't hear it. It's amazing. I mean, you have... You know, we have a dedicated platform for Spectre and that allows us to engineer it so that the floor is in between. You have the battery, then you have the floor, and then we have a panel. We have a channel underneath there. But really, the battery, if you think about it, for us, the best part was it's 1,500 pounds of insulation, sound insulation. Then we've got another 300 to 500 pounds of sound insulation throughout the car. It's just so well insulated. Well, see how noisy it is once you open the window. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. I'm an open window guy, so when I open it, I definitely hear it. But it's nice to have that, you know, just quiet, relaxing ride. It's got the massage going. Yeah, you got the massage seat. You know, the cold morning, you turn the seat heater on. Let's... You got some music? Yeah, you know, we had to find some royalty-free music because if I turn on the radio, whoever was on the radio, I would be sued and I have to pay the royalty rate. So I found some Beethoven. Let's see if... Oh, he's off royalties. He's not getting them anymore. I mean, you hear every piano key. So how do you like the suspension? I mean, when you're going over these roads where you can see that the road's untidy, right? Well, you realize it is a heavy automobile. Right. And if you're hustling a little faster than you should be, you will get a jolt up in the back. I mean, it's not... So you do tend to drive conservatively. Yeah. I like it. The thing I'm most pleased about... We haven't even mentioned the power. It's 577 horsepower. It's 664 foot-pounds of torque, which is more than enough. It's probably, I would say, as fast as the single-motor Tesla because the idea was they didn't want to give the Rolls-Royce customer a jolt. You know, you pin them back and, you know, your wife breaks her neck or something. You know, I don't think so. So that's sort of what it is. The thing I found interesting, because it is so heavy, it does tend to regen a lot more quickly than other electric cars I've driven. This has a range of 260, but I drove it, and I was, you know, going up and down the hills of California, and when I got back to my garage, I had 291. So I actually, quote, put gasoline in it, so to speak. You can refill it as you drive. And we have that. It's a B-mode. It's the regenerative mode. But it's not like the other regenerative modes where it kind of like it throws you back and forth. It's a nice, elegant, single-pedal. We don't advertise as single-pedal, but it's kind of a single-pedal drive, isn't it? Right, right. And the trouble, the nice thing about that is your brakes last forever. Yeah. You know, you're stopping almost 7,000 pounds. Well, 7,000 pounds. 6,400 pounds, yeah. With passengers in it. Yeah, yeah, that's true. So obviously, you're pressing those brakes, and you're going to be wearing those brake pads. But with the regen, instead of that, you're just constantly putting electricity back in, which makes it kind of a fun game. Well, it's nice because, like I said, it's predominantly a Rolls-Royce. Right. You know, we want people to know it's a Rolls-Royce. We don't want people to be nervous. We don't want you to worry. Let's say you forget to charge it, or you go out, and you have 115 miles left on the range, and you're going to go drive around town. You're going to drive 60, 70. Right. We don't want people to worry too much about that. It's easy to charge. I mean, have you charged outside the home? No, no. You're always fully charged. Yeah, I'm always fully charged. But, you know, and that's actually, that's really interesting to know that you're actually coming home with more juice than you left with. You know, and that's it. It's like, you're one of the first people to get a Spectre. So you're being one of the first people to get a Spectre. I mean, you're driving the learning on how you can live, what the difference is between living with a traditional Rolls-Royce and living with an electric Rolls-Royce. Well, I drive so many different cars. It's easy enough to adapt to it. I like the fun game of getting the regen, because I feel like I'm getting something for nothing, you know. Yeah, you are. You're saving on your power bill. of electricity. You know, that's kind of fun. How is it to drive with the regen? I mean, do you like it? Yeah, I like it. I like it because, A, like I said, I'm pretty stuck. Sometimes I will drive in the normal mode, but if I'm in a hilly area, I just take my foot off and as I come down, I see, at the top of the hill, I'll have, let's say, 250 miles, and bottom of the hill, I'll have 255. Oh, I gained five miles. I mean, so there's a certain pleasure in that. I just like, you know, look, you're spending all this money for a car, it's ridiculous, you're arguing, but it just makes me smile. No, it's, I mean, it's not about, yeah, it's getting something, but it's also, it's fun, you're still experimenting with it, but, you know, as an owner, you're going to learn, I don't have to worry so much about, I don't have to worry about the range. If I've got 50 miles and I'm 40 miles from home. Well, the trouble is, I would never take, a car like this would leave my house, go in a big circle and go home, or go to a place and come right back. I would never take this just to go out to eat, because you're not going to give it to a valet. You've got to be out of your mind. You could do a road trip. We actually, I've had a couple people, I think, I don't know if you've read the reviews, we've had people take it to Vegas and back. Right, right, right. You know, it's a nice drive, going to Vegas, because fundamentally you're going uphill, you have to do one stop in Barstow. Right. Coming back, you could probably make it back to the garage. Right. Do a gig at the Wynn, come back to the garage, you'd be set. Yeah, I mean, to me, and the fact that my only service would be changing brake fluid in 2026, I mean, that saves you. Don't miss your 2026, though. You see, I love here, this road, you can see, has a lot of bumps in it. Yeah. So I don't know how much you've looked at it, but what we have is you've got your four-point air suspension, so every corner has air suspension. Then it has what we call the planar system, where you actually have cameras reading the road, looking for those potholes. And then what it'll do is it'll decouple the anti-roll bars when you go over the pothole and then recouple them. So it'll let the air suspension take the hit on one wheel without swaying you off to the other side. So it's, there is a lot of technology underneath, you just don't see it working. Right. It just, it happens. The thing that surprised me was the demo for this car. The average age Rolls-Royce owner was 42. I would have just assumed it was 66 years old for some reason. It's been a long time. And it used to be, right? It used to be, yeah. I'd say back in, you know, 15 years ago when it was, we were a brand of Phantom, it was in the 60s for sure. Rolls-Royce, we know that is the, one of the youngest demographics, one of the youngest owner bases among all automotive brands. Right. We're the youngest in the BMW group. You know, we're younger than many. Is that right? Which surprises me. But it's, don't forget, we have a wide range of clients. I mean, we have a lot of clients that are in their 20s and 30s that are successful. They want to celebrate it. And I mean, Rolls-Royce, there's a certain popularity to it in different audiences. But we also have a lot of traditional people, more my age or your age, that are collecting Rolls-Royces as well. Oh yeah, when I was, when I worked for the company, I remember we got a red Corniche convertible in. It sat in the dealer for a year. Then, just sent it to California and sold it in two weeks. Because it's not a Boston car. Everything in Boston was sand over sable, dark blue over kiwi green blue. You know, gray over gray. Yeah, yeah. We still see that. I mean, I know that you wanted this car to be inspired. I remember you talking about hot rods. You've seen the classic black. Right. It's just a bad-ass looking car. But we have a lot of owners that want bright colors. And they want two tones. They want colors that you might think wouldn't go together. Right, right. And that's actually the designer's job is to take something that might not go together and make it look awesome. Yeah, I still don't think they go together. But yeah, yeah. But that's the beauty of it. You know, it's everybody's car is their car. And if they want to do it, it's up to them. Something I never got was white interior. There's no way to keep it clean. And the longer you have it, then you get those little cracks in the leather which would be you wouldn't even notice in a black car. But then, you know, then you get like a brown streak in there from dirt getting in between. But I, we have collectors. We have one collector. I actually drove his white 2009 Ghost. He calls it the Holy Ghost. I don't know if you know Michael Fuchs. He's a very colorful collector. If you're storing it indoors and you're storing it properly and you're a collector then it makes a lot of sense. Every day, trust me, in our demo cars, the ones we use for client or press evaluations, you know, Arctic white interiors pose a challenge I'll just say. Yeah, I would say. We spend a lot of time cleaning them. But it's, it's up to everyone. I mean, I love this one. I love the black and then just the red, the red stitch. You know the stitch you have here on the dash, on the top of the IP? This is the longest stitch that our seamstresses and craftspeople do inside Rolls Royce. And that's all done on a sewing machine or a person sitting there with two pieces of leather running it down. Are there new versions of the Spectre coming now? And what does the black badge mean? What does that mean? Black badge inside Rolls Royce, you know, that's our, it was inspired by people that were murdering out their Rolls Royces. It's two, twofold meanings. One is, we want a darker, a little bit more menacing look. We'll black out the bright work, we black out the SOE, we tint the, the grill black. Then, we make the car a little bit more aggressive on its performance. Most of that's done through electronic tuning. We'll put bigger brakes on some of the cars but it's to give you just a faster shift pattern on the gas cars. We might up the tuning on this to give you a faster 0-60. Actually, Spectre has the exact same specs, torque, 0-60, et cetera, as a black badge Ghost. Oh, okay. It drives like a black badge Ghost. I took a couple Spectre up to Toronto last week to see the Eclipse. I would never personally go to watch an Eclipse. No, I don't get it. But, I thought, we're always looking for a reason to do a drive. And you were charging on the road? We did pretty well. Yeah, we charged it. We did about a two-hour drive out of Toronto down to a vineyard. Can we get to the charging stages? Are the people there? Are you waiting hours? At the vineyard, they had two chargers. Was that provided by Rolls-Royce? No, they were the vineyard chargers. And they were AC regular? They were level two. They weren't the fast chargers, superchargers. They were actually both Tesla, both NACS and our system. So, about a three-hour? Yeah, what we did is we put them on the charger for about two hours and it topped everybody up. You can charge. So, you've got a 266 range. Depending on how you drive it, you can get more or less. You can go with a supercharger, you can go from 30% to 80% in about a half hour. On a regular charger, you'll put in you can put in 100 kilometers in an hour or two. It all depends on what the output of the charger is. And we'll be notified when we can use the Tesla? Yeah, we're in talks with Tesla right now. Is that DC? Do they have DC chargers at Tesla? Or is that only AC? Those, I don't know the specs of what the Tesla setups are. Starting in 25, all of our new cars will be NACS compliant, will be compatible with Tesla, at that point with Tesla superchargers. Once we get an agreement, there's going to be a way to use their commercial superchargers. Now, the Eleanor, is that the same as the BMW people? Or is it different? The internal, the assistant, the personal assistant, we use the same basic electronic backbone for our, we call it spirit. In BMW, they have a much more complicated, much more in-depth system, which they call iDrive. It's the same electronic backbone, but what we do is we kind of strip it down, re-skin it, put the features that we want in there. So your commodity features, which are controlling a certain function in a car, will be more in common, but when it comes to be more like a feature controlling the massage or things like that, those will skin. And when you're looking at it, we have a lot fewer pages in a Rolls Royce. You notice there's just not a lot of options. And the cool thing is, they give you the build book. Yeah, it's, I mean, the chronicling the building is, it's just another one of those personal experiences, and it's great because you get to see the men and women that are the people that are putting your car together, and as you look through these pictures, you can see, you mentioned earlier, yes, there's an assembly line, but we move the car very slowly, people actually get in, it's a very hands-on process. Okay, that was 660 pound feet of torque. The main thing is the turning radius. With this four-wheel steering, it really does an amazing job. You can turn, not on a dime, but, I mean, you'd think you'd be doing a three-point turn with this thing, but you don't. For a car that's 18 feet long, it takes the last few feet off of the car. It definitely makes it a lot more manageable. What's great, too, is with that all-wheel steering, is when you're at highway speeds, over 55 miles an hour, you go from counter-steering to complimentary. Both wheels turn the same way. It helps you slip into that next lane a little bit smoother. Like I said, you know, this website is all about unique driving experiences. And this is completely different to what we usually do, performance and acceleration. It's just comfort. It's just a totally different type of automobile. An SUV is one type of car, a sedan is another type of car. Two-door coupes, that's my favorite. That's sort of my favorite. They all seem the quietest and the most rigid because you have less moving parts, you know. I love the early 71 two-door corniche coupe. Oh, it's a beautiful car. a good-looking car, a nice-looking car. It's that classic, it's a sexy Rolls-Royce. I never bought one because it didn't have a tachometer. I always wanted one. So when the Turbo R came out with, that really was just a Rolls-Royce with a turbocharger. So it's been a fantastic car all these years. Really, not much maintenance at all, just change the oil and a few things to it, go through a couple of sets of tires. It's beautiful. You know, 70%, 7 out of 10 of every Rolls-Royce ever made is still on the road. that's what I hear. And, you know, we hope that continues for another 100 years. Part of it is because, you know, people who invest in a Rolls-Royce, they take care of it. But the other part is, it's that quality, that quality of engineering. Right. You know, all those years when Rolls-Royce and Bentley were together, they were able to share that quality. And they're two very different brands. I mean, Rolls-Royce is about effortless luxury. Right. It's, you know, over the past 10 years, it's developed that, kind of, the images evolved to elegant luxury that you want to drive. Yeah. You really want to drive it. We're not... Yeah, it's really gone from being a chauffeur-driven vehicle to an owner-driver vehicle, you know. Yeah. It's virtually the same thing. New York is so powerful. You realize, oh, most owners really want to drive. So it had cars that were, that were both. You had the divider, but you still had a nice area for the driver. You wanted to stick the chauffeur in the back and drive himself. Yeah, very rarely do I run into someone else that, you know, is a Rolls-Royce owner that has a dedicated driver. I mean, I know people that have drivers, but they're going to drive their car 80 to 90 percent of the time. Right. Yeah, if they want to go out, you know, whether they want to work or whether they want to go out and have a few drinks, then it's great to have a driver. But it is, I mean, like, the Spectre is such a fun car to drive. So let's look at the specs. 577 horsepower and 664 foot-pounds of torque. Like I always say, horsepower sells cars, torque wins races. It's 664 foot-pounds of very elegant torque. Elegant torque. Okay, yeah, because it's not going to thrash you back, but it's going to suck you back into that seat. You're not going to have a problem merging, you're going to have, you know, probably the hardest part with the engineers was them reining that 664 torque in. You're going to behave like a Rolls Royce. Then you have, you know, you have the four-point air suspension, you have the planar system, which is, you know, the electronic calculation for the anti-roll bars. Well, the thing I miss from early Rolls is the thin wheel. I always thought a thin wheel Rolls Royce. This is, it's nice, but the thin wheel to me was always sort of the... We still have thin wheels, for example, on Phantom, and Ghost will have it. The thick wheel is something that people have been telling us when they're driving more and more, they want the thick wheel. It's just more comfortable. Right, right, that's fine. So your range is officially EPA estimated range is 266. Right. It all depends on how you drive it, but we, you know, we do find that... But with the regen you do quite well. Like I said, as I mentioned before, the car is so heavy that when you get off the throttle, you've got a lot of rolling weight there, which is just a bump in the regeneration system. Right, you have the dual motors, which gives you a lot of control. So actually, the 664 pound feet of torque is coming from a torquier rear motor than the front motor. So you're getting all the torque right where you want it, but not too much of it. You're not going to lose control of the car. And people all stand that there's not a frunk in this, a trunk in the front. They just sort of expect it. Well, we have the long bonnet, but it's just not part of the DNA. You've got a trunk. So the front compartment is a gift to our technicians and engineers that are maintaining the car. Basically, that's a bay of control units. That's where all the electronics are. It's going to make it a lot easier for people to work on the car. Rather than cramming all of that in up underneath the car, we make it easily accessible. If you have that much more luggage, can I get Cullinan? Well, I don't get that one. I think it's a practical SUV, but it doesn't seem elegant. Well, Cullinan, if you go back, when we got ready to launch, I think I spent a lot of time looking at the old be unique, they want something different. They don't want to drive an SUV out there, they want a Rolls Royce. Everything has its niche, and we don't try to make one car do too many things. That's why when we chose the body style for this transition as we're transitioning away from ice, we chose this coupe, we chose a big coupe on purpose. Well, Jerry, thank you and Paul for coming by and giving us a brief little synopsis here of the car. Again, this is a different kind of car from what we normally do, and I know some people are going to be upset that it's not a performance car. People are mad because it's electric. Guys, I tell you, this is pretty good. It doesn't get much better than this. Jerry, thank you very much. Thanks a lot, Jerry. It's great to hear from somebody who actually is an owner. Yeah. Hear what you think. I'm thrilled. See you guys next week.