Potent symbol: Rolls-Royce Ghost

Luxury on wheels As a sign that you have made it, a Rolls-Royce is hard to beat. The tall radiator grille and bluff front comprise an unmistakable, unique and very public symbol of success.

Ignoring the fact that Ford of Europe used the phrase "the car you always promised yourself" for the definitely further downmarket Capri (itself a low-rent version of the US Mustang), a first Rolls-Royce is a tangible marker that mastery of your field, whether it is business or rock music, has been rewarded by financial success.

However, a first Rolls-Royce is also one of the classic signs cautious company doctors look for when searching for overstretch. Many entrepreneurs have sought the cachet of its potent symbolism too early - with the result that the car, instead of cementing a business success, has hastened a corporate demise.

So while a Rolls-Royce is a sign of having arrived, it can also be a portent of an imminent and ignominious departure from the business scene. The likelihood of that being the case is raised by an increasing shift in ownership of the cars from old wealth to impatient new money.

The dominant connotations of wealth and fortune inform some of the components lovingly stitched into each Rolls-Royce, but they also serve to obscure its strengths as a motorcar, of which there are many, particularly with a model such as the Ghost. Smaller than the Phantom, whose bulk is intimidating on narrow roads, and more practical than the two-door fastback Wraith, the standard-wheelbase Ghost is the car I would choose to drive myself, rather than be driven in.

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Technology rides to the rescue, though. From parent company BMW comes a system that provides what military types call a "God's-eye view" of the areas next to the car, using cameras mounted around the vehicle. That and the normal rear camera make not only reversing but also manoeuvring next to kerbs and other cars much less intimidating. And cameras facing sideways out of the long, long nose are useful when navigating the arched entrance to my mews in order to avoid squashing fast-moving pedestrians.

Given the mass and bulk, the car handles densely packed city streets pretty well, once I get over worrying about cyclists scratching the two-tone paintwork as they squeeze past its width. The up-lit Spirit of Ecstasy standing proud of the grille provides me with a visual reference to assess the Ghost's extremities without resorting to using the cameras.

The car certainly shifts too - the V12 engine puts out 563bhp and propels the Ghost from standstill to 60mph in just 4.7 seconds.

<>Even without using all that performance, covering ground is what the Ghost does best. Gadgets such as adaptive cruise control, which maintains a safe distance from the car in front, and a lane-departure warning make short work of motorway distances. The ride at those speeds is also appropriately sumptuous for a car that costs north of £200,000. Over potholed streets at low speeds the need for the suspension to balance the car's vast weight against the mass of the huge wheels can result in less than stately jiggles, though.

The cabin - especially with the right hues of leather and wood veneer - is light and airy, as well as self-consciously luxurious, despite a spattering of chrome. It is a relaxing environment whether at a British motorway 70mph-and-a-bit or an autobahn 155mph - the governed top speed.

No speed is great enough to avoid attention, though. Whether it is the name, the radiator-top mascot or the neo-brutalist looks, the car catches people's eyes, especially those in thrall to celebrity. I was driving through London a couple of years ago in a super-luxury saloon when a car stopped alongside, its driver beckoning me to wind down my window. "Are you someone I should know?" he asked. The car I was driving was from another British motoring bastion now owned by a German carmaker - Volkswagen's Bentley - but the lesson is the same.

That has to be a concern. All cars exist in their own cloud of image and marketing, but the power of the Rolls-Royce brand means there is a danger of people believing their own mythmaking if they own one of the cars.

In business, however, reputations generally have to be earned. Putting the cart before the horse, or the trappings of success before the success is assured, would merely add to suspicions that some Rolls-Royce owners are trying too hard to prove themselves.

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