The Ultimate Luxury in a Rolls-Royce Is a Highly Trained Human Chauffeur

It’s 9 a.m. on a Friday, and I’m in a mirrored suite on the 31st floor of the Wynn Encore Las Vegas, watching an Englishman named Andi McCann practically pirouette across the carpet.

“It’s like dancing, you move the head, and the body follows,” he says, turning his chest like a matador toward the November sun seeping through floor-to-ceiling windows. “Make it one smooth movement; it’s theater!”

This is no Cirque du Soleil audition: McCann is teaching me how to open a door. A driving coach for Rolls-Royce Motor Cars since 2005, and its solo trainer since 2012, McCann teaches chauffeurs for tycoons and tech entrepreneurs in Texas and Taipei, Saudi Arabia and Singapore. They learn the correct, Rolls-Royce-approved way to load luggage, hold umbrellas, chill champagne, evade security threats and, yes, even open doors.

“Opening a Rolls-Royce door should be done effortlessly and in one move,” says McCann, his posh accent as crisp as his white button-down shirt. “It's done with legs and arms.”

As automakers like BMW AG and Mercedes-Benz Group AG race to achieve full autonomous driving, and the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, upsells driverless-ness with his robo-taxis, McCann inhabits quite a different universe.

He sits outside two pillars of thought running roughshod through the car world: There’s the full-self-driving camp pursued by companies like Musk’s Tesla Inc. , which promises to turn cars into four-wheeled mobility bots. Then there are those who demand total front-seat driving engagement, like the folks at Porsche AG who swear they will never eliminate the manual gearbox that makes some of their 911 sports cars so thrilling.

Rolls-Royce offers a third philosophy. It presumes that a healthy portion of its clients will prefer the back seat to the front. Of the roughly 6,000 vehicles the company delivers globally every year, 20% go to owners who employ chauffeurs. The proportion is even higher among owners of the $575,000 Phantom extended wheelbase sedan. McCann’s job is to ensure their enjoyment of the ride is maximized by the person they pay to take the wheel.

“We make the world’s best motorcars,” he says. “The weak link is the driver.”

Training drivers is not as old-fashioned as it sounds. Part-time chauffeuring is increasing globally, especially in Asia, where new wealth in China and Korea fueled Rolls-Royce’s year-over-year growth in 2023; and in the Middle East, where highly profitable bespoke commissions have achieved new record levels by both number and value, according to the company’s latest annual report.

It’s not just Rolls’ best doing the driving, either. On Oct. 28, luxury chauffeuring firm Blacklane GmbH raised €60 million ($65 million) in funding from investors including a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The Berlin-based company allows clients to connect with professional drivers via mobile app, website or hotline, anywhere in the world.The appeal of the chauffeur is the personalized care and acute attention they provide — a certain human warmth and street-level, real-world intelligence that no robot, however advanced, can provide. It’s the experience of being welcomed and cared for by someone who knows your preferences and can adapt in real time as conditions change. Having a private driver is not just about getting from A to B: It’s about everything else that happens along the way.

McCann says a chauffeur is both a traveling concierge and an efficiency-creating, time-saving advantage on the day. Those who insist on the best chef, masseuse and bodyguard also appreciate the value of one of McCann’s graduates; for these wealthy individuals, the highest form of automotive luxury is to be driven by a human. I came to Vegas to see if I could make the grade.

The day started with a history lesson. Standing before a TV screen, McCann flips through grainy images of stately coaches; one shows T.E. Lawrence — Lawrence of Arabia — in his Silver Ghost, circa 1916.

At first, McCann explains, chauffeurs didn’t drive cars at all; they worked on trains. The word comes from the French chauffer — “to heat.” It referred to the stoker who kept the fires burning on steam engines.

As horseless carriages became popular around the turn of the 20th century, owners from Bristol to Bombay expected the people already working in their home stables and local stations to operate the newfangled machines. So Rolls-Royce started academies where clients could send stable-hands and valets to learn everything from car maintenance and operation to etiquette such as where the lady of the house should sit.

Many of the lessons still endure.

“Striving for perfection is a basic component of luxury; everything that you do must be sharp, effortless, professional and safe,” McCann tells our class of seven, who will spend two hours learning the basics before testing our skills driving through Valley of Fire State Park. The session is a shortened version of the invitation-only courses Rolls-Royce offers its VIPs; fees are not publicly discussed.

“If you’re on time, you’re late,” McCann tells us. Another of his shibboleths: “There may be ‘what ifs’ but there should be no excuses.”

I take notes as the sun climbs. McCann outlines some guidelines: Luggage should be lifted, not rolled, to avoid tracking dirt; bags must be loaded before passengers are onboarded, to safeguard the cases from potential theft. A chauffeur should pay special attention to the rear-view mirror, which is positioned so as not to make eye contact with passengers (that’s for safety and discretion).

And this unexpected instruction: Never ask those in the back seat about their flight.

“That’s the worst thing you can ask anyone,” McCann responds to my quizzical brow. “When was the last time you got off a metal tube and went, ‘I've had a great time’? When you ask that question, you’re immediately asking the client to bend the truth.”

He keeps talking; I keep scribbling. Focus on personalized details, like which water the client prefers (sparkling or still? Pellegrino or Perrier?); put bottles in the door, not the cup holder, so there’s space for the client’s own drink. Memorize the names of beloved pets. Level air vents and head-rests. Ensure that music — if any — and climate are satisfactory.

“Our refrigerators have two settings, six and 11 degrees [Celsius], one for vintage champagne, one for non-vintage champagne,” he says. “You should know what time of day the client will arrive and adjust accordingly. If it’s evening, you’re probably drinking vintage, and that temperature should be warmer.”

Driving, of course, is the job. But I didn’t realize that driving well starts with sitting. I have never paid as much attention to where I put my limbs as I do when I ascend an emerald green Cullinan parked outside the Wynn. McCann directs me: arms outstretched and shoulders relaxed, hands at 9- and 3 o’clock. Thighs parallel to the ground, pelvis uncurled. My toes sit lightly on the pedals.

It’s not exactly the position I take when I climb into, ahem, my own Rolls-Royce, an olive 1975 Silver Shadow. I suddenly realize that I’ve been throwing my car around Los Angeles less like I’m conveying a head of state and more like I’m on the final leg of some off-road endurance rally in all my late-braking, whiplashed glory.

Technically, I tell myself, that’s okay, since Lawrence undoubtedly drove rough with his Rolls-Royces during his legendary desert exploits. But it’s not okay for today, and not to be witnessed by this ever-polished Brit. Cringe. I need a major mind reset.

“If you have any tension in your body, that will translate into the car,” he says. At the moment I’m feeling so much tension it’s forming tiny balls of sweat along my spine. Apparently I’ve been doing this all so wrong in my own RR that I’m lucky I haven’t killed anyone and developed crippling sciatica in the process.

We’re weaving through the strip mall outskirts of Vegas. Now he’s in my ear, saying I must pass the Whiskey, Gin & Tonic, Champagne Test. This means I should be able to brake so imperceptibly that a champagne coupe on the hood of the vehicle would not spill its contents. Start by practicing with whiskey in its traditional glass, he says, then gin, before graduating to the bubbly. It’s a theoretical exercise today, but I’m already working up the courage to practice with my Shadow when I get home.

I visualize success: Touch the brakes with the elegance of a ballerina; focus like a surgeon. Keep the fizz in the cup. Breeeatheee.

“Don’t let bad driving affect your good driving!” McCann breaks my reverie, noting I should allow more room between us and the Prius jutting ahead.

We enter acres of red monoliths and Joshua trees as we put Vegas behind us. I can feel myself becoming steadier on the steering wheel and more balanced around corners.

Finally I spy the lunch spot where we’ll rejoin the class. Indefatigable, McCann keeps coaching: Never start or finish a journey going backward. Unload passengers first, then reverse if you must, parking so the Spirit of Ecstasy remains front facing. It’s a sign of respect for Eleanor Thornton, the real-life model for the signature ornament festooning the cars that have carried regents and rock stars since 1904. “You could be thrown out of an event for parking her against the wall,” he says. I don’t think he’s joking.

We alight, and McCann produces a lint roller, listing essential items for chauffeurs: a pocket knife, microfibers, alkaline water, a USB with music on it….

I am beginning to realize that, for the passenger, luxury is absence. Specifically, the absence of dirt and grime, of annoyance and disorder and inconvenience. A good driver keeps you unfettered from such worries as you pursue the day set before you; under their command, the car itself becomes a sanctuary.

But the art of chauffeuring also feels connected to a deeper concept, which celebrates the craftspeople who create order and beauty out of raw materials. It’s Martha Stewart and her garden; Lucien Freud and his oil paintings; the $4,400 Loro Piana cashmere throw blanket. Such aspirational spaces and goods derive from humble trades — gardening, painting, weaving — that are masterfully executed and, as such, highly prized.

McCann showed me that chauffeuring honors the connections we have with each other, and of the inherent dignity found in perfecting an old-world vocation. It feels like a refutation of an impending, cold auto-pilot existence. I desperately wanted to refine this driving thing and prove myself worthy to be counted among such company.

Before leaving Las Vegas the next morning, I visit the valet desk to pick up a package. It’s a single white glove with a gold RR pin, framed in black and signed by McCann — the unmistakable sign that I passed! I’m elated, and a little surprised.

Back in LA, I test my learning, grabbing a real champagne coupe from my kitchen and setting it on the hood of my Rolls-Royce on the quiet street behind my house… If I’m honest, I’m not quite up to McCann’s exacting standards yet. But I’m working on it.