Old vs. new: Rolls-Royce Ghost

The legend:

The Silver Ghost of 1906 wasn't Rolls-Royce's very first car, but it was the car that catapulted Charles Rolls and Henry Royce's car-making outfit onto the world stage. Autocar called the Silver Ghost - or the 40/50, as it was officially known - the 'best car in the world,' which was a claim few would dispute. Its 48bhp 7.0-litre engine was capable of 50mph (astonishing at the time) and it cost around ten times the yearly salary of a well-paid professional.

The newcomer:

By contrast, the new Ghost is the litter of the Rolls-Royce runt - a smaller alternative to the mighty Phantom for the aristocrat who prefers to drive his own car. But despite being called the 'baby Roller', the Ghost is anything but small: it's well over five metres long.

A worthy successor?

A difficult one, to be honest. The Silver Ghost was Rolls-Royce's crack at making the best car money could buy and history says is a goal it achieved. The Ghost, on the other hand, is essentially a watered down version of the bigger Phantom; some of the electrics and running gear are, for shame, shared with the 7 Series of parent company BMW. Back in the early 20th Century there was no such thing as platform sharing and multi-brand car conglomerates.

However, Rolls-Royce is at pains to point out that, in fact, the purpose of the Ghost is not to offer a cut-price Phantom, rather to offer a car with the Spirit of Ecstasy on the bonnet that's easier to park and more fun to ping out of a wet roundabout. Whether it's succeeded we don't yet know, but with each car taking 20 days to hand build by 60 skilled Goodwood craftsmen, a posh 7 Series this definitely isn't.

What are my options?

Unveiled officially in Frankfurt this year, the 6.0-litre V12-powered Ghost will cost around £200,000 when it goes on sale early next year, although as you might expect there's unlimited scope depending on how fat your bank account is. That applies to running it after you've bought it too; the taxman certainly won't approve of its 317g/km CO₂ emissions, but your local Shell garage will enjoy its 20.8mpg fuel economy.

In terms of a Silver Ghost - forget it, basically. Just under 8,000 were made during a 19-year production run (making it one of the longest running series production cars in history), and although some still do exist, they're extremely rare and thus extremely expensive.

And the winner is:

The Ghost. It's like comparing a typewriter to a Macbook really: although there will always be those who yearn for the elegant simplicity of the typewriter, the latest Apple laptop is milled from a solid piece of aluminium. Milled! And it will pick up BBC iPlayer in the middle of an airport.

Buying an antique car is all very well and good, but when you're late for a deal-breaking business brunch, what would you rather take? A seminal piece of engineering the Silver Ghost may have been, but the pragmatist in us picks the new Ghost every time; despite it's extra dynamism, we're almost certain the newcomer will have all the sumptuousness we've come to expect from Rolls-Royce. That makes it our winner.

Mark Nichol