ROLLS-ROYCE CULLINAN BLACK BADGE
No, it hasn’t got any prettier. More than five years on from its launch and Rolls-Royce’s SUV is still most kindly described as an acquired taste. Other opinions are available. It hasn’t changed by the way, in case you’re finding it doesn’t snag your eyeballs as much as it used to. What’s happened in the intervening years is that car design hasn’t stood still. Look at the BMW XM, Merc EQS SUV etc and you’re forced to conclude styling’s slammed open the door marked “where taste goes to die” and taken a bold step through. Maybe Rolls gave them all the confidence to do it.
Right, enough taking aim at soft targets. Design isn’t the only thing that hasn’t stood still in the past half decade. EVs have arrived. To all intents and purposes, you could convince passengers the Cullinan is electrically powered. Drive gently and you can’t detect the pulse of a single cylinder, and with no rev counter the power reserve indicator could just as easily suggest electric propulsion as petrol.
But nothing’s changed here either. It’s not gone hybrid or gained the Spectre’s electric underpinnings (at least not yet), so what we have is a softly blown twin-turbo 6.75-litre V12 developing 663lb ft at a mere 1,650rpm. That’s the only figure that matters. Like electric, it appears not to have to work for its speed but instead glide up to whatever cruising velocity you deem fit. It is swanlike. All is chin-up dignity and poise.
It’s like wafting around in a cloud. You feel distant from everything. There’s no suspension or road noise, the ride is glossy and calm, nothing intrudes. There’s nothing quite like it. Except a Phantom. The ride comfort is extraordinary, more downy than a Bentley, a real step on from a Range Rover. This soothes, dampens and quashes. The world slips by.
The world also looks in. If anything upsets the calm you feel in this car, it’s the attention it draws. It exposes you. Is it worth it then? A Range Rover is a more handsome machine, more attractive inside too and, given a straight choice, that’s the one I’d recommend. But things aren’t that simple with the Cullinan. It might be a similar size, shape and weight, but it’s a different sort of car. Rather than the Cullinan aping the Range Rover, it’s the Range Rover – in its most upmarket guise – that seeks to ape the Cullinan.
It’s all about luxury. The key battleground now has nothing to do with off-road ability. The Cullinan is merely SUV shaped. It exists to repackage
