2020 Rolls-Royce Cullinan

A tenet of good writing says you can’t modify a superlative. “Very best” gilds the lily, and “one of the best” is a hedge. Best is all you need say. That’s the spirit of the phrase “the Rolls-Royce of …,” which gets applied to any kind of thing, say a particularly nice vacuum cleaner. It's immediately understood — “Rolls-Royce” is all you need say. So it’s a special occasion when the pinnacle of automotive excellence, and the symbol of supremacy in everything wrought by human hands, heaves to in one’s driveway. The Rolls in this case was the 2020 Roll-Royce Cullinan, the most expensive SUV in the world, this one costing $394,275. This Cullinan arrived in lustrous Jubilee Silver (a big improvement over the purple one our contributor Jason Harper drove a few months ago). The car appeared to be carved from a silver ingot. Our first-drive review back in 2018 called the three-ton Cullinan a monolith, and that’s spot-on. It looks imposing and not to be trifled with, like a British warship. And in fact this car was built to a nautical theme, with a two-tone interior of Charles Blue / Navy Blue. A hand-painted coachline of Charles Blue traced its gunwales. Cullinan even sounds a bit like a British warship (they have the best names). But its namesake is the 3,100-karat Cullinan diamond, the largest ever discovered, chunks of which are part of the Crown Jewels. The car is an enduring symbol of British Empire, though with a lot of German parts. What can one say? We drive a lot of expensive cars at Autoblog, but it's a bit hard to understand why there even is such a thing as a Rolls-Royce press vehicle. What sort of information could a critic impart? Do you expect to hear it wasn’t nice? Well, it was. Was the V12 not smooth? Like English cream. Was it not comfortable? Its cabin was expansive and its seats accommodating, and its ride was every bit the “magic carpet” Rolls promises, with sensors alerting the air suspension of upcoming unpleasantries in the road surface. And like a magic carpet, the system settles the car back down to earth for a gentle landing when you’ve arrived. Yet the self-righting wheel centers make it appear as if you'd never left. And who would benefit from criticisms, if there were any? Few reading this have the means, but those who do would likely choose something more anonymous for real-world use, such as a top-trim Range Rover. Even a Bentley Bentayga would be less expensive, if only slightly less attention-getting. In Seattle, a town with its share of billionaires, I’ve seen a Cullinan on the road only once. Bill Gates, to name just one, is a Porsche man. A Rolls-Royce, though made for motoring, is more of a status symbol for pro athletes or rock stars. It's collected, and for what it is, not what it does. That said, the company sold 5,152 cars in 2019, up 25%, largely …
Full Review