As we passed 60mph for the first time in the new Rolls-Royce Ghost, a tight cluster of water droplets started appearing in the centre of the lower windscreen - just as it did on the first Rolls I ever drove, a Silver Shadow, 33 years ago. Just as it did in later years, in Spirits, Spurs, Seraphs, a Corniche and in the recent Phantom. Thank God, I thought. This is a real Rolls-Royce. It's all the fault of the Silver Lady. Rolls-Royce motor cars, and especially their grilles, may get slowly more streamlined as the years roll by, but there isn't much you can do about the drag factor of the Spirit of Ecstasy. She stands there, proud as ever, causing eddies in the air that flows past her, so that when you drive in the drizzle which is such a part of British life, water droplets converge on the screen directly behind her, and always have done. For me, it's how you tell you're in a proper Rolls-Royce.
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