Let’s get one thing out of the way. The Rolls-Royce Cullinan is – both objectively and subjectively – a very good car. A lavishly appointed passenger compartment is ensconced within its chiselled, classically proportioned, high-sided flanks. Deep behind that totemic ‘Parthenon’ grille lurks 6.75 litres worth of V12, suitably fettled, sound-proofed and harnessed to a transmission of buttery soft smoothness, with enough torque to crush mountains.
The Cullinan’s technology is bounteous, but also battened down, smoothed off and kept well out of sight; off-road mode consists of a single button, rather than a topographically annotated dial or complex menu system. The Cullinan is also a Rolls-Royce, and is of course therefore very expensive, starting at around £250,000. Even after shelling out a quarter of a million quid, the expectation is that most customers will be after a few upgrades, opening the door to an unconstrained option menu that, if truth be told, occupies a large chunk of the company’s creativity.
There’s no ‘standard’ car, but in an off-the-shelf colour on regular 21-inch wheels, the Cullinan’s stance is a strange mix of the brutish and the apologetic. Although the company has joined the cult of the SUV, it claims to have done so on its own terms, biding its time until the clamour from its customers could no longer be ignored. Customers presumably wanted an uber-upscale SUV so they could simultaneously fit in with the trend while at the same time trumping their neighbours' common or garden Bentaygas and Range Rovers. As a result, the Cullinan is a necessarily conservative piece of design, even though the requisite heritage trawl threw up some credible precursors in the country’s century-old history, most notably the armoured Rolls used by Lawrence of Arabia.
The more pressing question is does the Cullinan represent the future of luxury? Despite its flawless abilities (appropriate for a car named after a diamond), Rolls-Royce design remains in the realm of the tried and tested. Yet just two years ago, flush with futurist purpose, the company presented the 103EX, a spaceship-like super-coupé concept, sans steering wheel and supposed to represent the pinnacle of autonomous mobile luxury circa 2030 or so – a car spliced with a robotic butler, concierge and chauffeur.
It was a brave piece of design, one that took recognisably Rolls-Royce elements like the grill and stance and then shaved away extraneous volumes, leaving the front wheels encased in fairings betwixt a visor-like ‘radiator’. The 103EX is pure futurism but appears to have very little bearing on a car like the Cullinan.
Does this matter? Rolls-Royce knows all about the intoxicated dream state of the wealthy. The company was founded on the principles of supplying the best to the ‘best’ and ensuring that they've paid for it in full. Its cars will always be famously expensive, and fabulously lavish. “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me,” F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, going on to explain the ways in which those born rich have a different outlook, coloured by early, irreversible immersion in the finest things in life.
When living the life of the very rich, even if only for a few days, Fitzgerald’s maxim reminds one not to take things for granted. It is, however, very hard not to slip into the reverie of privilege. To drive the Cullinan is to exist in this dream state, to be shielded from the world by thick, thick glass and to have an engine so insulated that it might as well not be there at all.
There are two phrases Rolls-Royce always likes you to associate with its cars, “magic carpet ride” and “the architecture of luxury”. The former refers to that wafting ride quality, undaunted here by the dirt roads and steep gradients of rural Wyoming, while the latter refers to the flexible structural system that allows commonality of parts without reverting to cut and paste design.
The Rolls-Royce buyer prefers complexity to be hidden away. Yet technologies like electric drive and autonomy are chipping away at luxury's innate conservatism. Concepts like Renault’s EZ-Ultimo or the Volvo 360c eschew the three-box saloon and two-box SUV in favour of a single, monolithic structure, a spacious passenger cell that makes the most of autonomous systems and EV underpinnings. They suggest capacious interiors that transcend conventional car design, potentially offering the super-rich new and exciting ways to be parted with their money.
More pressingly, there are unexpected challenges, most notably from the reborn Lagonda brand. At 2018’s Geneva Auto Show, Aston Martin whipped the silk off a monumental luxury EV, a sleek monobox form with a massive emphasis on interior space and materials. The Lagonda Vision will remain a concept, but the brand that appears at the coming turn of the decade will be EV-focused from the outset, and pitched head to head with Rolls.
In comparison to these interior-focused upstarts, the 103EX feels constricted by the requirement to appear imperious to the outside world. The Lagonda concept caused such ruffles at Geneva that the company hastily re-released its 103EX imagery and (presumably) redoubled internal efforts to introduce electrification. But the question remains - can a production Rolls-Royce ever combine status with innovation?
Car companies are a cagey lot, and Rolls is more tight-lipped than most. In recent months, its CEO, Torsten Müller-Ötvös, has pledged the company will leapfrog plug-in hybrids and go straight to full electrification; parent company BMW is hardly inexperienced in this field. But Rolls also claims that customers remain emotionally attached to the big old V12.
The first all-electric Rolls-Royce, a tweaked first-generation Phantom, went on a world tour in 2011 to meet and greet prospective buyers. None of them were particularly impressed. Times have changed; we strongly suspect the big V12 could be switched out for a couple of electric motors and most owners wouldn’t even notice the difference. Inevitably, an all-electric version of the current Phantom is reportedly in the works, perhaps emerging first as a special edition.
"Beyond the obvious characteristics of instant torque and silent motoring, electrification is a natural progression for Rolls-Royce," Innes admits, "Obviously, there are the tenets of Rolls-Royce that will guide us, but we know that the future of luxury is personal. Electrification and low-volume flexibility will empower us to shape a Rolls-Royce for an individual in the most profound way." So how will it advance the architecture of luxury?
There was one big thing missing from Rolls-Royce’s stop-pulling, theatrically challenging, cowboy-themed launch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the American equivalent of Chipping Norton with contours on steroids, the single richest per capita county in the whole of the USA. That missing piece was Giles Taylor, former Rolls-Royce design director and the car’s lead designer.
For over six years, Taylor was the impeccably presented face of Rolls-Royce design, expertly walking a fine line between tradition and modernity, parlaying the imperious design language originally shaped at BMW’s DesignWorks studio into credible, contemporary luxury. Taylor’s former creative duties are currently spread around, and his absence isn’t acknowledged, in true automotive industry tradition. Tellingly, Taylor has headed East to Hongqi, the luxury arm of China’s FAW, the country’s ‘First Automobile Works’ founded in 1953. In Hongqi (‘Red Flag’), FAW believes it has a potential challenger to the apparently unassailable Western luxury marques. In Taylor, it believes it has the man to guide it.
Is Cullinan’s conservatism a necessary buffer for this apparently unconventional model? Alex Innes, the young designer who heads up Rolls-Royce’s bespoke division, and who now shares responsibility for Rolls-Royce design, has been responsible for several forays into the wilds of extreme consumption, including the mighty one-off Sweptail shown last year, as well as another glittering manifestation of the Spirit of Ecstasy that we were shown but sworn not to reveal.
The Sweptail reportedly had a seven-figure price tag (Rolls-Royce staffers smile in a noncommittal fashion when you mention money) and is as close as the modern iteration the company has come to the baroque eccentricities of its glorious past, when Maharajas and moguls pushed taste to the limits. People will mess with the Cullinan, of course. The German coachbuilder Klassen have already rendered up a stretch, armoured Cullinan, a steal at €1.8 million, while a triple-axle version will be just a matter of time.
Ultimately, Rolls-Royce might decide that futurism is just not its thing. The Cullinan is magnificent, yet a grand country house as opposed to a sleek modernist retreat. But even when handed a blank cheque and an empty page, the impulse was towards tradition, not tomorrow. Future challengers to the luxury crown take note.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
