Rolls-Royce Runs Black Badge Customs at Goodwood

• Rolls-Royce's exclusive design team, Black Badge, displayed four of its commissioned models in its hometown at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

• Custom-built Ghost, Wraith, Cullinan, and Dawn models were all shown, with each featuring a unique color scheme and interior quality.

• The Ghost and Wraith ran as part of the weekend hillclimb in a show of performance prowess.

What better place to display the peak of performance luxury than at Goodwood Festival of Speed? Based here in southern England, Rolls-Royce would say nowhere, and they brought four pinnacle models from its Black Badge wing. Featured front and center on the Laundry Green were custom-built versions of the Rolls-Royce lineup: Wraith, Dawn, Cullinan, and Ghost.

The Ghost took charge this year, running the hill climb stage four times a day over the weekend. It appeared as a beast among the supercars and even normal size sedans, clawing up the hill with brute force. And its striking color contrasts—a baby blue the company calls Galileo blue and opposing red brake calipers—added to the shock factor with each run.

There was no shortage of rare, expensive, and luxury cars on the hill this weekend, but something about the sheer heft of the Rolls-Royces made them exciting to watch. Both the Ghost and the Wraith are more than capable from a hardware standpoint, with V-12 engines and all the name-brand braking and suspension components installed, but we don't really expect them to be driven to the limit.

Expectations aren't always met, and that's a good thing in this case. As the metallic flake Tucana purple Wraith slid through the first corner, it was clear Rolls-Royce was running its car to showcase not only its design prowess, but to prove the model's real-world performance capabilities. Cutting the inside edge of brown grass and kicking up a cloud of dust behind it, the Wraith stole the big-car show as it grunted underneath the mid-course bridge.

The BMW-owned company displayed it's convertible Dawn and Cullinan SUV as part of the hillclimb festivities; a Dawn and Cullinan were part of the safety car regiment following each group. Presented in a two-tone Jasmine and Black colorway, the Dawn epitomizes the Black Badge design philosophy—a sleek, subtle convertible with boisterous underpinnings.

And as the luxury SUV market expands, the Cullinan joins the ranks of unorthodox designed SUVs with a punch under the hood. The Black Badge example at Goodwood came equipped with intricate five-spoke 22-inch wheels and a carbon-fiber Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament. The company said the bespoke Cullinan is an exercise in utility and effortlessness, characterizing the 563-hp SUV as a useable tool.

As the weekend wrapped up, the Rolls-Royce models were not the fastest nor the rarest on the hill. Though beautiful, the underpinnings of Rolls' offerings weren't particularly new either. But the snarl of a V-12 and the sound of tires squealing under 5500 pounds of luxury is something to behold.