Christopher Wynn surveys the scene: slabs of bookmatched wood veneer from a single tree, satiny metal fittings and hand-stitched leather wrapping the dash. It takes nine hides and more than two weeks to upholster the entire interior.

The British are a cheeky bunch. I am behind the wheel of a gleaming silver Rolls-Royce and an Englishman wearing a pinstripe suit and tortoiseshell glasses is sitting in the back seat. We are parked curbside in downtown Dallas on an unusually sticky fall morning. He coos to me in an oh-so-proper, buttery voice about the car’s high-tech gadgetry. I am instructed to press an elegant button beside the steering column. Suddenly, the dash’s high-resolution center screen switches into thermal-imaging mode and I blush. Am I seeing that man in front of us naked? The image from the car’s infrared camera displays the street scene in what looks like X-ray detail. “Don’t worry, you can’t actually see anything,” the natty representative assures me as we stare at the vivid outline of a lumpy man on the sidewalk. “Not that you would necessarily care to.” He then explains how the camera detects the body heat of pedestrians and animals up to 300 meters — well, 1,000 feet — away. At that moment, a Range Rover pulls up to the adjacent valet stand and a leggy blonde comes into our screen’s view. My dapper companion is the first to break the sudden awkward silence: “Now, there’s some heat.”

Half an hour later, I’m solo and gliding the streets in one of Rolls-Royce’s most important models, the second-generation Ghost sedan. This smallest family member is as close as the automaker will ever get to a volume car. With its sights aimed squarely at America, Rolls-Royce took the unusual move of launching the car not in New York or LA, but in Dallas. (A splashy multi-day roll-out brought in media types from GQ to Playboy for a test spin and, no doubt, some barbecue.) According to a spokesperson, Rolls-Royce chose Dallas for the launch because of the city’s entrepreneurial spirit and prowess, which she says is in kinship with the revised Ghost. Translation: Dallas’ economy is robust and we’re obsessed with status cars and how we look driving them.

The nose of the Series II is where the main redesign action is, with new sculpting, new LED headlamps and more grille trim.

To the latter point, the refreshed Ghost serves its purpose well. Like the rare example of restrained plastic surgery, the new car’s nips and tucks are subtle, but effective. The front has been augmented to appear fuller and wider with a more prominent bumper design and bigger grille surround. (As fashion designer Tom Ford once noted in an interview for National Public Radio’s Fresh Air: “Right now, everything is pumped up. Cars look like someone took an air pump and pumped them up. They look engorged. Lips pumped up, breasts pumped up, everything is pumped up.”) And while the dainty Spirit of Ecstasy flying-lady figurine atop that grille turns 103 this year, she doesn’t look a day over 20. Her iconic image even shows up on a new rotary-controller touchpad inside the car. (Press down and you can trace out words and letters with your fingers, a neat trick; your handwriting displays on-screen.)

The Series II’s interior is also rejuvenated and you need only pop the rear-hinged doors to fully appreciate it. My tester was swathed in rich red leather everywhere, especially accentuating all of the cuts and curves of the reworked seats. For the employ-a-driver set, the shuttled can specify $3,150 wood-inlay tray tables, individual display screens, a concert-hall-worthy sound system and massage seats. How long can it be before the Brits work in a hot tap for proper tea service?

Of course, the road is where Rolls-Royce hopes to really get your Ghost. I took mine zinging across Large Marge for a run to the very American hot-dog diner Hofmann Hots — “Man! Nice Rolls,” said one man, offering a catcall as he left, clutching his bag of hot dogs — and zooming up Central Expressway. The twin-turbo, 6.6-liter V-12 engine is a beast, but you would never know the fire beneath the hood from inside the hushed, refined cabin. For true handling analysis, I picked up FD editor-in-chief Rob Brinkley and handed over the key. Brinkley is a confirmed Flying Lady fetishist. He owns two: a Silver Shadow sedan and a Corniche convertible. Brinkley explains the signature Rolls-Royce driving experience as a certain “magic carpet” sensation — the sense that you are floating just above the road, not necessarily connected to it. The good folks who engineer and build these cars have long called it “waftability.” Merriam and Webster say that to waft is “to move or go lightly on or as if on a buoyant medium … as if by the impulse of wind or waves.” It’s not a take-your-Dramamine thing: It’s the subtle sensation of being pulled along extremely smoothly.

After Brinkley drove us around town — pressing buttons, stroking the stitched leather and, yes, punching the gas — he was happy. “I was skeptical that the Ghost might be too firm,” he said, “as most modern-day luxury cars are, in my opinion. I am pleasantly relieved.” The car is almost 6,000 pounds — three tons! — and yet one can maneuver it with one’s pinky fingers and the tips of one’s toes. “It, indeed, wafts,” Brinkley declared. “It is a Cool Whip car.” Not all was perfection, though. When in the driver’s seat, the base of the windshield was too high for his taste: He felt too low, too bunkered in. “I also don’t like that the lower half of the Spirit of Ecstasy isn’t visible. She’s flying a bit below the horizon.” But there were plenty of visual delights inside the leather dash’s stitches, those elegant switches, brightwork, slabs of sculpted wood that kept his eyes entertained.

How much for this thoroughly modern take on British heritage? Official entry level is $286,750 for the standard Series II and $319,400 for the extended wheelbase version, but exactly no one leaves it there because these cars are all about the flourishes. Further upgrade options include illuminating your Spirit of Ecstasy for $7,475, bespoke paint for $14,050 and a package deal that bundles lambswool floor mats, rear theater audio and “RR” monogrammed seats for $54,250. Keep going all the way and you will crack half a million dollars for one of these sexed-up tea-sippers.

But, hey, what price waftability?