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2020 Rolls-Royce Cullinan Road Test | Aboard the HMS 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. ThatÂ’s the spirit of the phrase “the Rolls-Royce of Â…,” 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 itÂ’s a special occasion when the pinnacle of automotive excellence, and the symbol of supremacy in everything wrought by human hands, heaves to in oneÂ’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 thatÂ’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 wasnÂ’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 youÂ’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.

Rolls-Royce Wraith gets Inspired by Fashion

A little over a month ago, Rolls-Royce revealed a special-edition Wraith that was "Inspired by Film." Now the British luxury automaker has returned with another unique take on its fastback coupe in the form of the Inspired by Fashion edition. Unveiled at the Pratt Institute in New York – one of the country's top design schools – the Wraith Inspired by Fashion is well, just that. It features a tone-on-tone white exterior, complemented by the customer's choice of accent color: green, red, or purple. The accents are also applied inside, where the cabin is done up in white and black leather, with a unique steering wheel and clock, wood trim that takes nine days to complete, welt leather door panels, and special embroidery. If nothing else, the Inspired by Fashion edition just goes to show the extent of personalization options that await the Rolls-Royce customer, the vast majority of whom take advantage of those choices when ordering their new ride. ROLLS-ROYCE MOTOR CARS UNVEILS 'WRAITH – INSPIRED BY FASHION' 8 May 2015, Goodwood Rolls-Royce Motor Cars and the world of Haute Couture have long been bound by a common philosophy – to take the very finest materials and craft them into the most exquisite and desirable luxury goods, appointed to the customer's exact specifications. In this spirit, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars is delighted to unveil 'Wraith – Inspired by Fashion'. Fittingly, the marque's first showroom in Conduit Street, Mayfair was founded a short step from London's famous centre of tailoring excellence, Savile Row. Here, Sir Henry Royce and his partner The Honourable Charles Rolls echoed the offerings of their illustrious neighbours by providing London's most stylish denizens with the automotive equivalent of the finest cloths; a perfectly engineered Rolls-Royce chassis and running gear. The customer would then call upon their preferred coachbuilder, who would furnish the car with personal touches and accoutrements specified perfectly to their requirements. A century later, a bold new generation of customers continue to share the same appetite for commissioning expressions of their taste and lifestyle. 'Wraith – Inspired by Fashion' provides a modern take on this grand tradition. Akin to commissioning a fine suit or elegant piece of couture, the journey of creating a highly Bespoke Rolls-Royce motor car begins at the marque's equivalent of the tailor's atelier, the Bespoke Design Studio at the Home of Rolls-Royce in Goodwood, England.

Ultra-luxury automakers like Bentley and Rolls-Royce need to hurry up with EVs

In the five years that I've worked at Autoblog, I've read a lot of press releases. They're all pretty flowery and self-serving, but the ones that go the extra distance with lavish words and pompous phrasing tend to come from the most luxurious brands, Bentley and Rolls-Royce. And something that they both love talking about is sustainably sourced materials for their vehicles. The descriptions read like they've seen the light about using resources responsibly. That would be great, except for one thing: There's nothing sustainable about multi-ton land yachts with eight or more cylinders. Only one of Bentley's models can be had with fuel economy better than 20 mpg combined when running on gasoline, and guess what, it's not one of the brand's two plug-in hybrids (which are to be commended, but still seem half-hearted when we're talking serious sustainability). And Rolls-Royce is even worse without a single model even hitting 15 mpg combined. These automakers should have at least one EV model apiece. Apparently, there are some coming, but they're still years away, and that frankly shocks and frustrates me for a number of reasons. One of the big ones is that these brands couldn't be better suited to electric propulsion. What makes these cars impressive is their refinement and performance. You can't get much better in either of those categories than with beefy electric motors, which provide nearly silent operation with no gear changes and enormous power and torque ratings. And it's all achievable with a lot less effort than making an 8- or 12-cylinder internal combustion engine quiet and smooth. Sure, battery technology is complicated, and it's expensive and heavy, but all of that is covered by these brand's typical products. They can command prices that would easily absorb the cost of batteries. And the size and weight of current cars mean that loading them up with batteries to achieve range comparable to their gas models wouldn't be a problem, either. Heck, that's the exact strategy being used by GM and Ford to get huge range in their electric trucks. 2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S View 41 Photos And the cost of the EV technology shouldn't even be that great for Bentley or Rolls-Royce, since they're both owned by companies that are leaders in electric car development with existing technology and the ability to spread costs out over various brands.