Goodwood-based fine luxury maker Rolls-Royce unveiled this year a refresh to their most iconic car to date. The Phantom VIII is the latest and greatest ultra luxurious limousine to arrive in the last 14 years and is quite possibly the most impressive luxury car the world has ever seen. From the outside, you might think that Rolls phoned this design in, at first glance. Just at a quick glance, it doesn’t seem all that different from the car it replaces. However, a closer look reveals that Rolls Royce actually upgraded a changed the Phantom’s looks in almost every single way, subtly and tastefully.

From the front, you can see how much sharper and how much more angular the new Phantom VIII is. The way the fenders come all the way out to the front end of the car, and make a right angle straight down, is far more pronounced. It’s actually refreshing to see how boxy the front end is, it’s all right angles and sharp edges. It’s refreshing in this modern day of funky shapes and architectures. While the first-gen Phantom’s headlights look sort of tacked on, these new ones look set deeper in the fascia and ringed in LEDs. Its grille is also now much larger and sort of built into the body work, which looks better.

Down the side, the new Phantom VIII looks much better. In profile, the old Phantom always looked good but somewhat odd and a bit frumpy. The new car looks far smoother, more streamlined and seems to be better proportioned.
It’s on the inside where the Phantom VIII really sets itself apart. While, again, the overall design and shape of the new cabin isn’t that much different from the one it replaces, the devil’s in the details. It seems as if Rolls Royce told its interior designers to go out and design the most elaborate, gorgeous and expensive pieces of automotive trim. Rolls-Royce encased the entire width of the dash in an uninterrupted swathe of toughened glass. Within this, there is an LED backlit 12.3 TFT instrument display and on the passenger side, space to display art beneath this glass. Even though the overall shape and design of the cabin seems so similar to the last-gen Phantom, this new one looks so incredibly premium.

The new Rolls Royce Phantom

comes with Alertness Assistant, a 4 camera system with Panoramic View, all-round visibility including helicopter view, Night Vision and Vision Assist, Active Cruise Control, collision warning, pedestrian warning, cross-traffic warning, lane departure and lane change warning, an industry leading 7×3 High-resolution head-up display, WiFi hotspot, and of course the latest navigation and entertainment systems.

The eighth Phantom since its introduction in 1925 will go on sale early next year.

Click below for a photo gallery from Switzerland: