Let's first of all square this whole Rolls Royces going off-road thing.
Because it's not that much of a surprise.
Nearly a hundred years ago Rolls Royces would regularly go off-road,
because there were no roads.
And the legend of Rolls Royce was built on the fact they were indestructible
and they could drive on gravel roads.
Does it feel wrong to be doing this in a Rolls Royce? I'm not sure it does.
A car's a car, isn't it? It's a massive SUV, it should be able to do this.
The refinement in this thing is extraordinary.
We've been in it for 10 minutes and it is unquestionably
the quietest SUV ever built.
I think in engineering terms this is incredibly impressive.
It's massive, it's quiet, it's so comfortable.
The ride quality is... It's not been seen in a car of this type before.
However, and this is the subjective bit...
From the rear three-quarter I can live with it.
From the front I think it looks... There's a technical phrase for this...
**** terrible.
A slight dilemma here.
I'm 7,780 feet up a mountain in this brand new Rolls Royce.
That's worth as much as a row of houses, in say Merthyr Tydfil.
And there's a big puddle there.
I mean, should you really get the Rolls Royce covered in,
for want of a better word, crap?
I suppose you should, shouldn't you. It's windows up and...
I'm going to get mud on a Roller.
So Rolls Royce has built an SUV, it's not much of a surprise really.
Last night a man from Rolls Royce told us how the company had agonized for ages
about whether it should build an SUV or not.
But I'm not sure I buy into that, it was a no-brainer.
Commercially, this vehicle was always going to sell because, let's face it,
as the world becomes richer, the rich people become more tasteless
and they want more and more SUV's. That's why Lamborghini makes one,
and Bentley makes one, and Porsche makes one.
And, I can't believe I'm saying this, Ferrari is going to make one.
So here we are in a Rolls Royce SUV.
Now I'll lay my cards on the table from the outset.
I don't like SUV's, I can't think of a single situation
in which I'd rather have an SUV in which to live with
and use as my everyday spacious car over an estate car.
Estate cars are better. I'd rather be lower to the ground
and not so heavy and not so ostentatious.
But I have to put myself into someone else's shoes
and try and understand why someone might want to buy this car.
So I'll treat it objectively, I promise.
The car is called the Cullinan
and that's named after the largest uncut diamond ever taken out of the ground.
I stood there last night as Rolls Royce's design team talked me around
the reasons why this line met that line and that swage did this and that.
I thought to myself it all sounds really clever, but it's a bit gopping.
I've not met a single person who says they think
the Cullinan looks good, it offers a positive reaction.
Some people will make excuses for it and say it's not too bad from this angle,
but for well over £300,000,
you shouldn't be justifying yourself by saying it doesn't look too bad.
Now I normally shy away from discussing subjective matters,
you know, taste, the way things look.
But with the Cullinan I have to get involved
because I just don't think it looks very good.
It looks to me like a Chinese knockoff
of what they think a Rolls Royce SUV should look like.
When you go to a Motor Show and you see something that looks a bit...
That's it, that's how this car looks. That's just terrible, I think.
The engineering that's gone into this thing is impressive.
They've been doing it for about three or four years.
It's on a bespoke platform,
it's a heightened and moved around Phantom underneath.
But it is a completely unique platform for this car.
That's critical because if you go and look at an Urus or a Bentayga
or a Cayenne or a Touareg, they all share commonality.
This thing doesn't, this is a standalone vehicle.
That's very impressive and it means it's very, very, very strong indeed.
When you've got a stiff structure you've got stability.
When you've got stability, you can have great suspension.
So from the moment you get in this thing the ride comfort is a different level.
There is no other SUV
that gives you the sense of serenity that you have in this car.
The MVH is incredible.
It's got about a hundred kilograms of sound deadening material
wedged up inside wheel arches, in the floor, and everything else.
This is a silent SUV.
At times you're not sure if the engine is running.
That's an ultimate accolade for a luxury vehicle.
When you keep trying to start it again you turn it off.
I've done it three times today in this car.
The ride at low speed, very good.
When you get to medium speed, again, it has that slightly magic carpet quality,
but occasionally there's a big sort of transverse line,
a seam between two surfaces that rattles those air spheres a bit.
And it isn't that dignified. It could be better, I think.
But, all in all,
it does that job better than any other car of its type that I've driven.
Well done Rolls Royce.
So if you want to be silent and be comfortable,
then this is the best SUV ever made.
Now the engine. 6.75 liters, twin turbocharged,
more power than the Saturn V rocket.
Yes, this thing weighs, you know, not far short of three tons,
but when it picks up its skirt, by hell it goes.
The old power reserve needle goes down to naught and it just fires along.
I have no idea how accelerative it is,
but it's more than enough for something this big.
Because when you get to the first corner you've got to stop the bloody thing.
It does that just about, but I wouldn't want it to be any more powerful,
because it's so heavy. I've this sense of inertia
that trying to stop all that mass is really tricky.
And then there's the handling. There's body roll,
because it needs to be supple to keep that that lovely ride,
and also it just starts to understeer.
It's like the Phantom in that respect.
It lulls you into thinking it's hidden all that mass,
and the moment at which it goes,
actually I was tricking you, you're in trouble.
So don't bound the corners too much,
don't think for a minute this can compete with the likes of the Urus
or the Bentayga, or any of those in terms of agility.
It's a much, much bigger beast.
But the person who buys it, I suspect won't care about that.
Does the Cullinan owner drive it themselves or be driven in it?
Unquestionably, they drive it, this is not a Phantom.
What's it like to drive then? It's commanding.
The driving position is, yeah, it's imperious,
I'm just looking down on the poor people of the world.
I'm not that comfortable with that, but I suppose some people are.
The cabin, well, I tell you what, rather than do that on the move,
let's talk you around the cabin now
and then we'll come back to some more bits about how it drives
and how it makes you feel.
So here is the outside of the Cullinan.
I'm not going to walk around and describe the styling
because you can see it, so maybe we just leave the outside alone.
Go to the rear three-quarter, rear three-quarter.
This is the only surprising bit for me.
The more time I spent with the car the more this kind of works for me.
It's a bit Range Rover, it's quite bulky, it's quite powerful,
and this sort of suggestion that there's a luggage compartment
in the back of it, yeah, it kind of works.
But the boot itself, come have a look. It's not that big, is it?
With those massive wheel arch intrusions, because it's got big air spheres,
that's a tiny boot.
If you have two Labradors one will need to be dominant.
So what they've done is they've sacrificed luggage space for, wait for it,
for rear leg room. And there's plenty of that.
Allow me to show you. In we get.
It's spacious,
but I sense there's been a...
a sort of clash of conscience at Rolls Royce
as to whether they needed the rear legroom or the boot space.
And they've happened across a solution
that isn't necessarily what I thought it would be.
But there we go, they know more about these cars than I do.
You've got touch screens here,
you've got a USB-C down in there to charge your devices.
You can control the radio, you've got different heater functions,
and you've got the glass roof.
It is luxurious and there are so many different rear seat options.
This is the bench option, so this gives you the proper family Rolls,
but you can go for individual rear seats, or for the super luxurious ones
which have extra padding and look a bit like a first-class aircraft seat.
The all-powerful driving seat. Ahead of me lies a world of poorer people than me.
So the steering wheel has got a thicker rim than a Phantom.
I quite like thin rim steering wheels on Rolls Royces
particular a little bakelite one on the Phantom 7, but it hasn't got it.
This is a rough leathery substance that looks like... rubber.
I don't quite understand it. The rest of the materials are beautiful.
It is a step above a Bentayga in terms of the materials used.
The ergonomics, poncey word for where stuff is,
are quite baffling at times.
These little buttons here, they control what your seat's doing
in terms of fans, because it will cool your bottom,
or heating because it'll heats your bottom, or will heat the steering wheel.
If you want a massage, that should be in the same place but that's down here,
that's hidden down there.
Why is that down there and those are there?
And why are they so small? I can't see them.
This is the sort of Rolls Royce contorted iDrive thing,
because it all comes from BMW ultimately.
And the stuff on the leeward side of where I'm sitting, I can't see.
This armrest here. It feels really cheap. The rest of it feels expensive.
That to me feels...
there's a whiff of Citroen Picasso about that.
Instrument pack, pretty.
This nav screen, I quite like that because it's quite small.
However, crucially, watch this.
When the Cullinan driver can't be arsed to lean...
Look, I just can't be arsed to reach that door.
Almost worth 330 grand alone. Let's do that again.
Watch that.
I cannot be, I can't be arsed to move six inches.
So it's a mixture. It's not as expensive as a Phantom, and it doesn't feel it.
It lacks the opulence, it lacks some of the quality.
The seat is really impressive in the front.
It's supportive and it's very comfortable,
and that coupled with the lack of noise and harshness in the cabin
means this is a very, very relaxing place to be in.
Long journeys are not going to be fatiguing.
This in many ways is a car that you don't want to get out of
because it's so comfortable.
The seat is so good, the ride is just so plush,
and the general sense of silence
and of being in something that's engineered to perfection...
it's just so powerful.
But also you don't want to look at it
because when you get out that illusion's shattered,
I just don't want to see it.
I want to park it up and walk away from it.
The rear three-quarters is getting better for me but it's...
It's just not a looker is it? I just feel a bit ashamed to be seen in it,
which, I know, it's sad
I'm sure there are lots of you out there that think it's gorgeous.
I've never ever allowed myself to have an overall opinion about a car
so fundamentally swayed by the way it looks.
But I just don't want to be seen in this thing, I really don't.
However, the new Phantom I have one of those.
So what I'd say to you is, if you can deal with the looks, this is a great car.
If you can't, like me, get a Phantom.
And if not, just do the world a favor and buy an estate car.