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Rolls-Royce Wraith pounds rivals at Goodwood

 

Britain’s annual Goodwood Festival of Speed is an iconic hill climb held in West Sussex. The climb pits some of the world’s most exclusive bespoke vehicles against one another on a gruelling 1.86km, nine-turn route.

The climb record remains Nick Heidfeld’s 1999 time of 41.6 seconds, achieved in a McLaren MP4/13 Formula One racer—though any time of under a minute is considered exceptional.

The 2015 Festival has unearthed an unusual victor—the Rolls-Royce Wraith coupe. Under the command of Joerg Weidinger, the two-door version of the Rolls-Royce Ghost completed the climb in just 57.21 seconds.

The Wraith tips the scales at nearly two-and-a-half tonnes. It finds its motivation from a 6.6-litre twin-turbocharged V12, making 465kW of power and 800Nm of torque—nothing to sneeze at.

The 57-second time was good enough to beat the time of a number of more obvious quick coupes: the Maserati GranTurismo MC Stradale (00:59:00), Bentley Continental GT (01:00:56), Maserati GranCabrio MC (01:00:66), and the Porsche 918 Spyder hypercar (01:01:37) found themselves subjugated to the big Roller, which finished the course at a remarkable 170km/h.

2015 Rolls-Royce Wraith

Chasing more Rolls-Royce?