There's a new luckiest man or woman in Dallas, and we're not talking about Ritz-Carlton guests who can now take joy rides in Uptown in the hotel's new Rolls-Royce Ghost II.
We're talking instead about the chauffeur whose job description now includes guiding the spotlight illuminated "Spirit of Ecstasy" hood ornament up the Maple-Routh Connector and around Klyde Warren Park -- anywhere, really, so long as it remains within a 3 mile radius of the hotel.
According to a press release, the luxury hotel's new house car has a "diamond-black exterior," plus a panoramic sunroof and curved, heated seats that "allow passengers to face each other more easily while conversing."
All registered Ritz guests are allowed to take the complimentary chauffeured Ghost on a first-come-first-serve basis, seven days a week.
Construction on Pearl? Potholes on Olive? Ghosts slide through walls. Well, over rough terrain, that is, without as much as a boo. Passengers needn't bother over the cacophony of a crowded downtown while quietly working on the "piano-black picnic tables" folding gently from the front seat-backs. No need to fret whether its coach doors and 563 horses can make a quick getaway from otherwise mandatory valet.
Upon announcement that the Ghost series would be revamped in 2009, petrol-heads maintained a healthy level of skepticism as to whether current parent company BMW could maintain the chilling mystique of the modern update's namesake, the Silver Ghost, produced from 1907 to 1925.
One flick of the car's famed Teflon-coated branded umbrellas (dried en route with heated air piped in from the hefty V12 motor) convinced most contemporary Jay Gatsbys it measured up in both power and design.
Fun fact: Fitzgerald's Gatsby likely slipped around in a Silver Ghost, whereas Robert Redford piloted a Phantom and Leo drove a Duesenberg.
If you get to take a ride, lucky you. But good luck finding this spooky stallion back at the stable.