1987 Rolls Royce Corniche on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Navigating the road time forgot in a Rolls-Royce Cullinan

The Rolls-Royce Cullinan glides evenly over the rutted single-lane dirt road, barely unsettling its passengers. Nobody is speaking in the lush cabin, not even my normally chatty 7-year-old.  All eyes are turned to the Delaware River gliding by, a dozen feet away, through a skim of skeletal hardwood trees. There’s no sign of humanity or habitation. ItÂ’s almost a scene in a movie. The Last of the Mohicans, perhaps.  Today we are exploring the Old Mine Road, and it is making us think of ghosts. Its 104 miles of asphalt and dirt make up one of the oldest continuously-used roads in America, stretching from New YorkÂ’s Catskills to the Pennsylvania Delaware Water Gap. The Lenape are thought to have first threaded a path here in the 1300s.  It is also a pathway wending its way through the NortheastÂ’s violent history, from bloody skirmishes between the original Native American inhabitants and European settlers to the Americans and Brits in the Revolutionary War. Little wonder that out here in the quiet, that history — and those ghosts — feel close. Amazingly, the 40-mile section in New Jersey that follows the eastern banks of the Delaware looks much like it did a hundred years ago. There are million-dollar views, but as part of the Delaware recreation area, no development is allowed.  Instead of the gated McMansions youÂ’d expect less than 1.5 hours from New York City, we are greeted by silent forest and twin lanes of bumpy or shattered asphalt. ThereÂ’s a section of dirt and gravel, narrowing to a single lane. Easy to imagine hundreds of years of horses and mules stamping down the thin path.  It is early spring and like everyone else, we have cabin fever. My wife, son and mother-in-law are sheltering-in-place at our country house in the Poconos. America is locked into a struggle with an invisible enemy. It seems a good time to get some historical perspective. If our ancestors lived and endured under harsh conditions, so can we.  There is nothing inherently unsafe or socially unacceptable about taking a short road trip on a virtually unused road, so we pack a lunch of cold pizza and snacks, and pile into the leather-bound, environmentally-controlled cocoon of the Rolls. We make our way to Kingston, N.Y., where the road begins. IÂ’m finally going to drive the entirety of the Old Mine Road.   Our Barney-purple Cullinan is a rolling sanctuary, a movable fortress of social isolation.

Drive like a prince: Join us for a walk through Monaco's car collection

Small, crowded, and a royal pain in the trunk lid to drive into during rush hour, Monaco sounds like an improbable location for a huge car museum. And yet, this tiny city-state has been closely linked to car culture for over a century. It hosts two major racing events every year, many of its residents would qualify for a frequent shopper card if Rolls-Royce issued one, and Prince Rainier III began assembling a collection of cars in the late 1950s. He opened his collection to the public in 1993 and the museum quickly turned into a popular tourist attraction. The collection continued to grow after his death in April 2005; it moved to a new facility located right on Hercules Port in July 2022. Monaco being Monaco, you'd expect to walk into a room full of the latest, shiniest, and most powerful supercars ever to shred a tire. That's not the case: while there is no shortage of high-horsepower machines, the first cars you see after paying ˆ10 (approximately $11) to get in are pre-war models. In that era, the template for the car as we know it in 2023 hadn't been created, so an eclectic assortment of expensive and dauntingly experimental machines roamed whatever roads were available to them. One is the Leyat Helica, which was built in France in 1921 with a 1.2-liter air-cooled flat-twin sourced from the world of aviation. Fittingly, the two-cylinder spun a massive, plane-like propeller. Government vehicles get a special spot in the museum. They range from a Cadillac Series 6700 with an amusing blend of period-correct French-market yellow headlights and massive fins to a 2011 Lexus LS 600h with a custom-made transparent roof panel that was built by Belgian coachbuilder Carat Duchatelet for Prince Albert II's wedding. Here's where it all gets a little weird: you've got a 1952 Austin FX3, a Ghia-bodied 1959 Fiat 500 Jolly, a 1960 BMW Isetta, and a 1971 Lotus Seven. That has to be someone's idea of a perfect four-car garage.  One of the most significant cars in the collection lurks in the far corner of the main hall, which is located a level below the entrance. At first glance, it's a kitted-out Renault 4CV with auxiliary lights, a racing number on the front end, and a period-correct registration number issued in the Bouches-du-Rhone department of France. It doesn't look all that different than the later, unmodified 4CV parked right next to it. Here's what's special about it: this is one of the small handful of Type 1063 models built by Renault for competition.

Stretched Rolls-Royce Cullinan is luxury in excess

If the Cullinan SUV wasn't Rolls-Royce enough for you before, then this stretched version from Klassen should assuage any of those doubts. Listed for $2.08 million, it's a far cry from the Cullinan's base price of $325,000. Klassen makes a number of stretched luxury vehicles, but this is the first time we've seen the Cullinan get modified like so. As a nod to its customer base, possibly, this long SUV is given the company's highest level of ballistic protection — B7. That means the thickness of the ballistic steel is 14.5 millimeters thick at minimum, providing protection from armor-piercing rifles and ammunition. The stretch measures 40 inches in length, which makes the Rolls look considerably larger, but not unwieldy. Occupants will be treated to the highest of luxuries including an iMac multimedia center (yes, an actual Apple desktop computer), Bang and Olufsen sound system and special ambient LED lighting — all of which is controllable via an iPhone. Klassen also says that the passengers can ride privately behind a "luxury partition wall." Looking at the "wall" in its other creations, it appears to create the ultimate in private riding for when you just can't stand to be interrupted by your driver. Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of the Cullinan's "wall." Its closest competitor is probably the stretched Bentley Bentayga, also made by Klassen. But why go for that when you can have the Rolls SUV instead? Featured video: Featured Gallery Klassen Rolls-Royce Cullinan stretched Auto News Read This Rolls-Royce SUV Luxury