The Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe Is an Ultra-Luxury Convertible

this is a 2013 rolls-royce Phantom Drophead coupe and I mean just look at it this is a car that is designed to remind you that no matter how successful you think you are no matter how well you think your life is going there are people out there whose lives are much much better today for a little while I'm going to be one of those people I [Music] borrowed this 2013 Phantom Drophead coupe from CNC motors here in Southern California which is like the exotic car dealer in this area they have an unending inventory of crazy insane amazing exotic cars you can check out some of their inventory if you click the links below it is truly magnificent now CNC sent me a note and they said hey you can pick out some cars to do a review on and I thought about it for a long time and then I decided I wanted something where I could look down on the peasants so I chose this here's a little background the rolls-royce phantom from this generation came out for the 2004 model year and originally it was just a sedan the convertible version came out for the 2008 model year and rolls-royce referred to it as the Phantom Drophead coupe strangely enough more on that in a minute now rolls-royce recently redesigned the Phantom with an all-new model but the new phantom convertible isn't available yet and so for now this is the most opulent luxurious convertible you can buy as for the details this car uses a six point seven five liter v12 with 450 horsepower about 530 pound-feet of torque now back when this car was new five years ago the base price for a Phantom Drophead coupe started at four hundred and seventy thousand dollars the sticker price on this one with options was just a shade over a half million dollars now today five years later CNC has this one listed for around two hundred and seventy thousand dollars meaning that it's half price just because it's an amazing bargain compared to what it originally cost doesn't mean it's any less amazing than it was back in 2013 so today I'm going to show you all of that amazing and I'm going to show you the many quirks and features of the rolls-royce Phantom Drophead coupe then I'm going to get it out on the road and drive it and then I'm going to give it a dug score and for more of my thoughts on the drop head coupe click the link below to visit autotrader.com slash oversteer where I've also rounded up a list of the cheapest used rolls-royce models currently listed for sale on auto trader now I'm gonna start with the discussion of the Phantom Drophead behemoth sighs this right here is a mercedes-benz c-class which is a normal rational automobile that a regular person might buy and this next to it is the Phantom and you can see just how much more massive the Phantom is especially in terms of height the Beltline is so much higher in the Phantom that it almost seems like an SUV compared to the c-class it's absolutely huge The Phantom you know is a big car but you don't really know how big it is until you see it in context next to a regular vehicle on the road but it isn't just this car as high beltline and overall height that make it such an imposing vehicle on the road it's also the length excuse me while I take a walk to the rear of the Phantom Drophead this car is 221 inches long or roughly 5.6 meters for all you metric people put another way it's 2 feet longer than a Range Rover now 220 winches may not seem like all that long it's the length of a full-size pickup or a little longer than a Chevy Suburban but then you remember that this car has two doors it's 2 feet longer than a Range Rover for a two-door car it's just ridiculous now on the subject of this cars massive presence I want to talk about the wheels now I make a point to never review cars with aftermarket wheels I think the factory wheels sort of contribute to the overall factory appearance of all the cars that I review except this one this car is so gigantic and it has so much presence that I think aftermarket 24-inch wheels just perfectly fit the character of this car and yes that's what these are twenty fours why would you have anything less on your Phantom Drophead next I'm moving on to some other quirks of the Phantom Drophead one of my favorite ones is the hood this particular car has the stainless steel option and so you have the hood finished in this beautiful stainless steel same goes for the front grille and unusually for the a-pillar in the area around the windshield it's all this gorgeous brushed stainless steel some people don't like the look of this but personally I do I think it very much sets this car apart from regular luxury cars that have simple paint on the hood next I'm moving on to the headlights there's nothing particularly quirky about the headlight so they are split in half 1/2 as the regular headlights the other is the high beams maybe the most interesting thing about the headlights is that emblazoned in the headlight cover it says are are the rolls-royce logo something you would never notice unless you notice and next up we move on to the doors now there are a couple of interesting items about the doors one is simply the way you open them with this beautiful silver handle that also kind of fits into this trim piece on the side of the car but as you can see this handle is in the front of the door which is rather weird and that brings us to our next door related quirk namely that their rear hinge so you open them like that and then you simply walk in to your Phantom Drophead a lot easier than a normal door but there's a problem now the door is really far away and so it's hard to close fortunately rolls-royce makes it easy there is a button you push next to the a pillar to the left of the steering wheel you press it and then the door automatically closes so when you climb into your Phantom Drophead you don't have to bother yourself with plebian tasks like closing your own door and by the way that door trick doesn't only work on the driver side of the car your passenger gets out and they are simply too wealthy to close their own door no problem there is a second door button in the same place the first one press it and the passenger door closes as well next we move on to the trunk of the Phantom Drophead coupe but before we do I want to talk about the key I like to ski because it's weird and cryptic there are three main buttons on it the one on the top is an arrow pointing up that unlocks the doors the middle button is the our our rolls-royce logo that locks the doors and then the third and final button is just a square that opens the trunk kind of got to know the co in order to figure out this key more interesting than the key is the trunk so I press the square button on the key fob and the trunk Pop's open and it's kind of a weird thing it only pops open here this part everything else down here stays put which is a little odd until you realize that it's a split trunk you press a little button on the top of this part of the trunk and then this bit comes down just like a split tailgate in a Range Rover I've never seen another car with a split trunk certainly not a modern car but this vehicle has and as you can see the lower tailgate part when it's folded down is completely carpeted so it could be a nice place to sit and enjoy a picnic now the trunk of the Phantom Drophead coupe is an excellent place to illustrate just how much better this vehicle is than your car there are several excellent examples and I'm going to start with the interior trunk release now in your car you have an emergency inside trunk release in case you try to kidnap someone they can pull a little lever and get out usually it's this cheap little plastic latch and it's nothing in this car it is plastic but it is rimmed in Chrome because even the emergency inside trunk release must have this aluminum lining around it to look beautiful next up in your car you may have an warning triangle if you break down in a first-aid kit and in your car it probably is hidden in some compartment that's labeled with a little sticker not in this car instead in this car it's in a compartment that has a leather piece on it and the symbols for the first-aid kit and the warning triangle are embroidered with this beautiful stitching because even the sign showing you where that stuff is has to be of the highest quality so anyway then you go to open up the little compartment where the warning trying on the first-aid kit are of course it is carpeted and the little loop you pull to open it is leather and stitched you open it up and you are greeted by a couple of other items that are better than in your car for instance the first-aid kit is not in some crappy little plastic pouch instead it's in this beautiful cloth pouch that is once again embroidered with the RR logo and the words first-aid kit you also have a tool kit back here with a couple of rather interesting tools there is a wrench that says on it rolls-royce so you know that you have a legit rolls-royce wrench not that crap you'd get in a normal car now another interesting item in the trunk is the other side of the first-aid kit toolkit area you can see there is another storage compartment you open up this one and you will discover just extra storage you can just put stuff in there if you have stuff that you want to hide and keep out of the way from your regular trunk storage next I'm moving under the hood and you can see this cars famous six point seven five liter v12 it's a very beautiful engine with rolls-royce printed above both cylinder banks very cool but my favorite item under the hood is not the engine itself but rather the little label that lets you know which oil to buy now a lot of cars put a little label under the hood that tells you which oil they recommend usually it's a little sticker you can peel off but not in this car in this car it is a metal plaque and it's fastened in place with four rivets even the little sticker in this car that recommends Castrol is more luxurious and upscale than in a normal car now the next step I want to move inside the Phantom Drophead but before I do there are a couple of interesting items I want to cover in the door one of which is the umbrella now when you open the door like this and you climb out there is a little spot in the front fender where there is an umbrella hidden you push a little silver button and the umbrella is delivered to you there in storage right now but you get the idea you push the button you take the umbrella and then you can just immediately cover yourself from the rain the moment you get out of your Phantom Drophead so you don't have to go route around for your umbrella but that is not my favorite thing in the door panel my favorite thing in the door panel is this little piece in the back of the armrest that says RR what exactly is this will you pull it out and it turns out that it's an ashtray for the rear passengers the rear passengers have a little cigarette lighter on their armrest and their ashtray is integrated in to the door and so when they want to go and put out their cigar in the backseat you just pull this little silver piece from the front door armrest you do it and then you can push it back in place and cover it obviously there's also one over on the door on the passenger side so that both rear passenger can have access to an ashtray next time moving on to the interior of the Phantom Drophead coupe when I start by showing you that you can put everything away here's what I mean by that right now you can see that showing in place are the controls for the infotainment system the ashtray and the infotainment screen itself but none of those things have to be showing if you don't want to see the pesky infotainment controls you can just push them into the center console and they're gone you don't want to see the ashtray push it into the center console and it's gone and my personal favorite the infotainment screen if you don't want the screen there cluttering your dashboard press this little button just to the right of the steering wheel and then the screen folds away and it's replaced by an analog clock just like the old-school pre-screen world that probably most phantom owners used to live in but in addition to being able to fold stuff away and hide it and take it out of view this car also gives you the opportunity to reveal a lot of things that are at first glance hidden for example the power seat controls are some of the strangest I've ever seen in any car they're not little buttons on the side of the seat instead you press this little silver button on the center console lid it opens up and you can see there's some form of power seat controls and to adjust the seats it's very odd you press the area on the seat that you want to adjust then it lights up in red and then you move the seat using this little silver joystick thing in front what this basically means is that you can't simply adjust the seat you get in and the seat is too far forward you can't just press the button and move it back instead you have to open up the center console highlight the area you want to press then move the little joystick in order to move the seat it's very strange stranger still is the fact that the heated seat controls are fixed in place on the side of the center console meaning it's easier to just press the button to turn on the heated seat than to actually move the seat that requires a lot more effort one interesting item with the seat controls is the headrest you can see the headrest is this beautiful single post headrest with the RR logo embroidered in it in order to move the headrest you highlight the backrest of the seat and then you move the joist up or down and you can see that the headrest moves up or down corresponding with what you do and it looks very nice when it does that now speaking of opening stuff up to reveal hidden things if you're watching before you noticed there are two silver buttons on the center console the rear silver button opens up the actual center console itself which is a storage area but it also has a USB port and a few other things but that's mostly what it's for now another interesting hidden item in this car is the glovebox that's hidden in a lot of cars but in this one it's especially unusual in part because opening the glovebox is weird there's not just a latching pole instead you press this little silver key lock thing to the left of the glovebox and it opens right up and when the glovebox is open you will find that there are a few hidden controls in there that you wouldn't have known about otherwise for example you have the control that raises and lowers the Spirit of Ecstasy that is the hood ornament on this car at the very front if you press the little down arrow next to the Spirit of Ecstasy it will lower into the grille so no one can steal your coveted rolls-royce hood ornament when you want to raise it back up just press the little arrow to the left that goes up and the Spirit of Ecstasy will again reveal herself automatically another hidden item in this vehicle is the other glovebox like I mentioned there's this little silver key lock that opens up the glovebox well to the left of that there is another unlabeled silver circle you press that and it opens up the lower glovebox it's worth noting that the lower glovebox doesn't really have that much storage instead it's really just there as the place where they stick the six disc CD changer you can get in there and adjust your CDs another interesting interior item where something hidden can be revealed there's this little black panel in the middle you push it and then it sort of slowly reveals the plastic lid surrounded by chrome trim when you peel back the lid you will find a tiny little carpeted storage area I'm not sure what you'd put there but it's a nice little hidden piece I guess for your phone or something else that you don't want other people to access now speaking of hidden items it's worth noting that the button in the very middle of the entire dashboard is unlabeled it's simply a silver circle so what does that do well it's simple it's just the volume control if you twist it and if you push it it turns the stereo on or off now right above the volume control is one of my favorite features of this car and that would be the eight little presets which is now the presets are not that unusual you can preset them to radio controls or to do other functions in the vehicle but the thing I like most about the Mist the fact that if you have the infotainment screen put away and you simply run your hand over the presets not touch them but just slide your hand over them the infotainment screen senses that you're maybe feeling the presets and it automatically opens up so you can tell what exactly each preset does again you don't even have to touch the preset for this to happen you just have to run your hands over it the screen will reveal itself so that you can then see what your presets do next up in terms of interesting controls in this vehicle you have the controls at the top of the windshield next to the mirror how about the fact that there are two separate buttons to turn on the dome lights if you press the silver button the dome lights turn on very gradually if you press the middle black button that turn on instantly so you can choose how quickly you want your dome lights to come on in your Phantom Drophead now next up another interesting item in this car is the gear lever which comes off the steering column like in an old Chevy pickup it's obviously a lot nicer than that you push it down for dry you push it up for reverse neutrals in the middle and to access park you push the end of the lever towards the steering column and then you're in park speaking of weird decisions in the steering wheel area it's worth noting that the horn is not in the center of the steering wheel like in most other cars instead you can sound the horn by pressing these little black spokes in the upper right and upper left another strange item up here is in the gauge cluster you can see it has a speedometer fuel gauge it also has a tachometer but it isn't quite a tachometer instead it's a power reserve meter it doesn't show how fast the engine is turning but rather how much power you have in reserve when you floor it it goes all the way down to zero since you're using all the power when you're just cruising along it's always somewhere near a hundred until you actually step on it another on you we'll item that only rolls-royce's have these odd climate controls that are so bizarre adjusting that temperature is the strangest thing it's these weird sliders that you can sort of slide from blue to red depending on whether you want cold or hot everyone else has gone to numbered temperatures but rolls-royce is still living in the days of a blue and red wheel also unusual are the dials that you can use to adjust the fan speed it's not that unusual to see dials to adjust the fan speed but the weird thing in this car is they're wrapped in leather even the fans speed adjuster dials in this car are leather wrapped for the ultimate in luxury next up we move on to the rear seats in the Phantom Drophead coupe and to access the rear seats it's actually kind of interesting you press this little silver button here on the side of the front seat and then you pull on this little silver latch that pulls the front seat forward there is absolutely no plastic involved in this process but anyway you climb in the back and you will find that's reasonably roomy back here although not quite as roomy as you might expect considering this cars massive size but once you're back here you do discover a couple of interesting quirks and features one interesting quirk of the rear seat is that there's a grab handle for the seat located right here I go so that when you're getting in or getting out you can just kind of pull on it and lift yourself up and get out easily another interesting quirk back here below the grab handle below the rear cigarette lighter that I showed you earlier there is strangely enough a rear storage compartment back here that's actually quite large I can't imagine most people would even find this but it's back here for all the things that rear passengers want to store another interesting item in the back seat is the fact that even the rear passengers have their own climate zones you can see the little red blue slider just like you have up front the rear passengers can adjust for their desired temperature even though very few people are probably ever gonna be in the backseat of this car and then there is the center armrest it's not all that unusual to have a center armrest in the backseat but I love the fact that in this car when you start to put the center armrest down it would leave a hole that isn't filled with leather so in this car they have sort of like an auxilary piece of leather that comes in and closes that hole when the center armrest is just so nothing will have to be uncovered by leather in this beautiful leather interior one other interesting item in the seats themselves if you look on the headrests you can see that they have are are printed on them very beautiful just like the front seats but there's also something else printed on them on the top of the headrest you can see it says rollover protection system this system has an explosive charge inside the headrest that is designed to explode when the car detects a rollover and stick out these huge roll bars that will keep the car from kind of crushing the occupants in the back convertibles are required to have this system and this car does and they're just sort of built in they're ready and waiting to spring into action in case this car rolls over but none of those items are my favorite feature about the rear seats my favorite feature is the fact that even though this car is completely open the roof down all the windows down totally open-air experience if I want to I can do this yes that's right the rear passengers have their own individual window so I do not have to speak to you and now with all of those minor details out of the way it is time to move on to the thing that you've been waiting for and that would be the roof and now that I've demonstrated the fact that this car is certainly indeed a convertible I want to talk about one other weird quirk of this vehicle that would be its name rolls-royce officially refers to this vehicle as the Phantom Drophead coupe even though it is in fact a convertible and not a coupe and making matters even weirder there was actually a phantom coupe with a fixed metal roof and then you have the drop head coupe which has a soft top my theory here is that rolls-royce feels at the top when it's in place is insulated enough to make this car be a coupe by traditional parlance you drive around you hear nothing it is like a coupe but in rolls-royce terminology drop head means convertible and so this car gives you the best of both worlds coupe insulation but Drophead convertible 'no sand so technically it is the Drophead coupe but it's a convertible and so those are the many quirks and features of the 2013 rolls-royce Phantom Drophead coupe convertible now it's time to get it out on the road and see how it drives all right driving the Phantom Drophead coupe convertible the first thing you notice when you get in this vehicle is just the incredible quietness and ease with which at all I mean the steering is so light and you don't have to do anything and you just feel refreshed simply getting in this car as you accelerate you hear basically nothing you hear no wind noise just the smallest bit of enjoys no exhaust it is large you do get the sense that its large or behind a 38-7 series and you feel like you're in an SUV looking over it but it's just so quiet I mean we're passing construction equipment here and they might be working they might not I would have no idea anyway [Music] it's actually quicker than you might think it it seems like it gets up and go goes pretty well I wouldn't necessarily call it slow but obviously it's not rushed when you for it it's clearly the acceleration experience is clearly dulled by the transmission which is attending to provide the smoothest experience possible and it succeeds in doing so but the drawback is of course that it doesn't exactly have quick shifts they're lazy smooth shifts there's no urgency to the power you can put your foot down and get going and whatever but it's not intended to be a fast car people who own these have ten other cars and they have a bunch of fast cars the point of this car though is to just you want something to just relax and a comfortable experience but mostly you're just so insulated you're just incredibly insulated from anything going on in the world around you everyone else's world is drowned out it just feels so quiet and so removed as is the intent and they succeed so well in doing that and the impressive thing is they succeed so well in doing that even with a soft top a lot of times you know that adds to some of the here a little bit more it's not acquaintances it's quiet well not in this conference just as insulated is that as a phantom sedan that I'm through now because this one has these aftermarket rims it's sort of narrower tires I imagine the ride quality isn't quite as good you can hear a little bit of tire noise I suspect the original wheels with wider sidewalls and stuff would be just even more comfortable and insulated it's hard just not to feel like you're good the king of the world when you're driving this thing looking out over this massively long hood and then at the very end of it you have the Spirit of Ecstasy but you've learned your whole life is like the ultimate symbol of luxurious opulence and the funny thing is you get passed by people in whatever you just don't care none of that stuff matters when you're driving this car you just don't care about anything because you just don't have to you're already the king of the world you don't have to go fast to prove your point you don't have to change lanes you don't have to be first anywhere it doesn't matter when you're in this car the thinking of like oh I should be first at this light oh I got to change lanes those thoughts no longer apply when you're in this and so that's the Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead coupe yes the new rolls-royce dawn is a technically more expensive convertible but the dawn is based on the entry-level rolls-royce ghost the Phantom is the flagship of the model line and do you really want to drive around and an entry-level Rolls Royce of course not you want this and you want to drive it around and look down on all the plebeians who passed you by and their crappy little bit Lee's and Mercedes and now it's time to give this car a dug score starting with the weekend categories and styling the Drophead coupe is fine not beautiful but very distinctive and interesting and it gets a six out of ten acceleration 0-60 is five point seven seconds so it gets a four out of ten handling is okay secured fine nothing great and it gets a five out of ten five factor is good it's a lot of fun driving this thing around and playing the role of someone who is better than everyone else though I suspect to be even more fun if you actually had the mansion in the watch collection to back it up anyway it gets a six out of ten cool factor is strong these are cool and special and it gets a seven out of ten for a total weekend score of 28 out of 50 as for the daily categories and features it's loaded with great tech for the last generation phantom but a lot of it is just that last generation and it gets only a 7 out of 10 comfort is amazing and it gets an easy 10 out of 10 Claudia's decent but it's starting to look a little dated inside and who knows what this thing is like to service an own when it gets an 8 out of 10 practicality is OK it's got a big interior or a decent trunk and four seats and it gets a 4 out of 10 finally value it's a bargain compared to the original price but it's still massively expensive and it has a long way to fall and it gets a 5 out of 10 for a total daily score of 34 out of 50 add it up in the dug score is 62 out of 100 and here's how it compares to other high-end luxury cars I've tested it falls behind most of them largely because they're newer a little better here and there but even though it's five years old the Phantom Drophead coupe still has the luxury chops to play it close with the best [Music]

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 1,660,064

Rating: 4.8402619 out of 5

Keywords: rolls-royce drophead, drophead coupe, rolls-royce convertible, rolls drophead, rolls review, rolls-royce review, rolls-royce drophead review, rolls-royce drophead coupe, rolls-royce drophead coupe review, doug demuro, demuro

Id: SYtWrHMjG20

Length: 28min 43sec (1723 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 27 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Zarkon]

I vote that /u/Doug-Demuro should start testing out the emergency trunk releases. He should climb in to the trunk, like he squeezes into the back seat of coupes, and then close the trunk and get himself back out again.

[u/RoosterDenturesV2]

For some reason the black paint with the black wheels doesn't look great to me on the phantom, much prefer silver wheels on them, which is not typical for me.

[u/EpicSketches]

Everyone complaining about how bad the wheels are but no one pointed out the worst part; they don't have the weighted badge in the center.

[u/MDA123]

/u/doug-demuro did you notice that every font in that car is the same Rolls Royce-style font? I mean every font: the embroidered first aid kit letters, the rollover protection system thing on the headrests, everything.

So many automakers mix and match fonts with impunity. But no, not Rolls Royce! Its customers are far too wealthy to be disturbed by modestly different fonts in little-seen places like the first aid kit.

[u/ExplosiveMachine]

Wow the interior is an ergonomic mess. The seat controls are absolutely mind boggling. I can't remember which car he was reviewing but it basically had a circle for seat control. You moved the circle forward, seat went forward. Moved it up, seat went up. Tilted it, seat tilted. This... I can't see the kind of person who would want to hide all their controls (read: old), using these controls. And then all the different damn buttons absolutely everywhere for no reason. Why are there two glovebox buttons, unlabeled, in the centre of the dash? What's wrong with them being on their respective gloveboxes?? The domelights are black magic. The AC controls are miles apart and every switch is different.

It's like they threw the buttons on, and then the interior was approved and produced. Nobody ever sat in it before, or they'd have seen how stupid it all was.

[u/chris102289]

those wheels are awful, its not a porsche

[u/Earl_of_Northesk]

Oh God, those rims. Please, no.

[u/left_turn_signal]

Wow thats a big car real land yacht. I wonder why they run such massive rims with small sidewall tires. Wouldn't Rolls customers want maximum road comfort?

[u/whifang]

I'm surprised a 2013 MY would have an ash tray and CD changer.