Price £181,865
MPG 20.8
Top speed 155mph

“Lipstick, nail varnish, shoes, handbags, plastic storage bin, Red Setter…” James, Rolls-Royce’s jovial UK communications director, is listing some of the items customers have used as inspiration for their personalised Rollers. “Our cars are bespoke,” he says, “and our customers commission cars to tell the stories of the big events in their lives – new babies, big birthdays, marriages. We work with each of them to give them exactly what they want.”

But what if they want some hellish vulgarity? Don’t you have a duty of care? Shouldn’t you protect them from themselves? Over James’s shoulder I can see a shockingly pink half-built Ghost easing its way along the production line. “Well,” James smiles, “we might say something along the lines of: ‘Sir, that’s a lovely idea, but perhaps this spectrum of colours will work even better.’” Advice Mr Pink clearly ignored.

James is showing me around the dazzling, architect-designed Rolls-Royce factory at Goodwood. It’s a factory but not as you know it. There’s no noise, no rush, no clutter, no oil, no pin-ups. With its grass roof and lakeside setting, it feels more like a spa and I keep expecting someone to hand me a fluffy white robe.

Rolls-Royce has been here for 11 years. Before that it was up in Crewe and the move south (not to mention being bought by BMW) has done wonders for the grand marque. Last year it sold 4,063 cars: its fifth successive record year. That’s a 20-a-day habit – a low volume that guarantees the prized rarity of each Rolls. Each one is created solely for its prospective owner and the 1,500 craftsmen and women who work at Goodwood are used to seeing a procession of major aristos and minor plutocrats touring the place as they make their minds up.

Many of the new cars head for China and the Middle East – the former are almost always black on the outside (for status) and red leather on the inside (for luck), the latter are far more garish and whimsical in their tastes. A sizeable number of Rollers now also head for America and the dotcom entrepreneurs of the West Coast. If you are labouring under the idea that the RR is all about old buffers puffing on cigars in wood-panelled clubs, you are way off the mark. They are now hip. This is because, in the cash-drenched world of the under-30 billionaire, it is tellingly cool to avoid the brashness of the playboy supercar.

It’s also partly because of the arrival of this car – the Ghost. It has been nicknamed the “baby Roller” and compared to its gargantuan sister, the Phantom, it’s cheap and drivable. Apparently today’s arrivistes like to be driven during the week and drive themselves at the weekends, you know, for fun.

And this new Ghost, the Series II, is so beautifully balanced, so graceful, so effortless, that within seconds of taking the wheel I’d be sacking the chauffeur, if it was down to me. Its delirious V12 engine is almost totally silent, yet it casually blasts you and this two-tonne baby to 62mph in less than five seconds. It’s astonishing.

I spent a few joyous hours off the leash with the Ghost in the quiet lanes around West Sussex before returning to the factory. Pulling up, I realised I’d now taken the tour and the test drive and had arrived at the exact point where five months earlier, some bloke had looked at James and said: “Yes! And I’d like it in pink.”

Email Martin at martin.love@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @MartinLove166

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