This is a Rolls-Royce isolation chamber

Introducing the best way to distance yourself from the great unwashed: the new ’privacy suite’ option for the Phantom, which takes the isolation of ‘have’ from ‘have not’ about as far it’s possible to go.

We kick off with electrochromic windows, as seen in Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell about 15 years ago; the gist, if you’ve not seen them before, is that there are layers of various chemicals sandwiched between two panes of glass, which allows fully transparent glass to transition to darkly tinted or even opaque with the application of electrical current. The current is used to manipulate the change; the chemicals then stay in that level of transparency until a reverse current is applied. 

But it’s not to block out the hoi polloi – this is exclusively between the rear cabin and the driver. Push a button and hey presto! You don’t have to look at your driver any more. Or speak to him. Putting a man in his place at the touch of a button? Now that’s true luxury. 

There are still the customary curtains and regular darkened privacy glass to block out any unnecessary inspection by the proles you’re cruising past, mind. It’s best to consider the back of the privacy-suite-equipped Roller as a mobile isolation chamber. But with crystal tumblers.  

The ‘standard’ Phantom is already quieter than a Trappist monk in a library, but the privacy suite erects perhaps the most complete wall possible between driver and passenger, with a “frequency-specific compound [that] inhibits the transmission of conversations in the rear cabin to the front cabin”. Basically, no one need know what you do in the back seat of your car. Let your mind wander as you see fit.