Why Rolls-Royce luxury car Black Badge is the most in-demand SUV for the rich
Ibiza’s Balearic bumps are no issue for the flashy Cullinan Black Badge edition.
A few years ago, when Rolls-Royce finally ran up the white flag and admitted the inevitability of building its first SUV, they flew the world’s media to Jackson Hole – a slightly more grandiose tax haven than Monaco, where all the proper US billionaires have at least one mansion – and let us drive their Cullinan up a ski run (it was summer – they’re not that brave).
The global launch certainly proved that the Cullinan was capable of doing things its owners would never genuinely consider (they have fleets of Range Rovers for that), but seeing it in its vast and lumpen flesh for the first time confirmed to me that it looked more like a London cab with tickets on itself than a proper Roller.
My predictions about how this car would be seen by Rolls-Royce customers, people I imagined as paragons of taste and sensibility, turned out to be totally and typically incorrect. The Cullinan is now the biggest-selling and most in-demand Rolls of all, making up between a third and a half of all the storied brand’s sales.
And now the Cullinan Series II is here, launched in a rather more unusual location, the infamous and possibly fatuous party island of Ibiza in Spain. My first, quite serious, question upon being invited was to ask if the island had roads. Answer, it does, but only in the same way that England has beaches.
I was quickly informed that the Balearic island was chosen because “the tastes and the modern codes of luxury are evolving”, and that, despite its reputation for being marauded by shouty young English tourists who can’t keep their shirts on, it’s actually ranked in the top six locations in the world for high-net-worth individuals to holiday.
It turns out there are at least two kinds of Ibiza: the excessive and the exclusive. The more remote parts of what is actually quite a small island of just 160,000 residents (it welcomes three million tourists each year) are dotted with spectacular clifftop homes, superyachts and sensational high-end resorts (you really should stay at Six Senses at least once before you die).
And then there are the rather more famous thumping-party parts where you can swap sweat with strangers until dawn and pay $25 for a bottle of water.
There are also, it turns out, two kinds of new Cullinan, the normal one and the even more elevated Black Badge variant – they call it “the alter ego of Rolls-Royce” – which not only replaces all of the chrome bits on the cheaper car with sporty black ones, but gets slightly more power (441kW vs 400kW in the standard Cullinan) and the option of some truly eye-catching, mind-boggling seats.
While Rolls-Royce is famous for filling its cars with the leather from large numbers of very beautiful cows, modern customers are asking for more environmentally sound options, which has led to the introduction of new Duality Twill seats, which look like heavily branded luggage from Gucci, but feel entirely different because they are a form of textile made from bamboo.
The work that goes into these seat coverings is so intense they can only finish enough for two cars a day. Each set of Black Badge Cullinan Duality Twill seats features 2.2 million stitches and 18 kilometres of yarn.
Another nice new little interior touch is the Clock Cabinet, which holds not only an old-school timepiece in the dash but, for the first time, a miniature Spirit of Ecstasy statuette behind a piece of glass (fear not, there’s still another one that pops up out of the bonnet).
What impressed me most about this new version of the Cullinan, however, is that some subtle but vital styling choices have made it look less like a blight on the landscape and more like a properly grand Roller that just happens to be taller than it should be. The rear end is more resolved, while changes to the grille and the vents beneath it, particularly on the Black Badge version, make it feel more grand and less gauche.
While Rolls has begun its shift towards electric propulsion with the Spectre, this Cullinan continues with its vast V12 engine, and as much as I loved the brand’s first EV, there’s something magnificent about the subtle yet strident song this thumpingly powerful, old-school 6.75-litre twin-turbocharged monster produces.
A car like this must always feel totally effortless, and the V12’s vast reserves of torque mean you always seem to have thrust to spare. At the same time, the steering is so light and the whole machine so easy to operate that you genuinely can drive it with two fingers, an attribute that Rolls always likes to mention.
Driving something this big and heavy, particularly on the narrow and winding sections of road that criss-cross Ibiza, should be a chore, yet never is. Throw it into bends too quickly and it will start to yaw and pitch a little, but then driving the Cullinan that enthusiastically feels inappropriate anyway (and its owners have Ferraris and Porsches if they want to do that kind of thing).
The Black Badge is definitely the standout variant and also won the most enthusiastic clapping and open-mouthed looks of awe from other road users. Overall the Cullinan is a hugely impressive piece of engineering, in every sense of the word.
Rolls-Royce Cullinan Black Badge
Engine: 6.75litre twin-turbo V12
Power: 441kW
Torque: 900Nm
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive
Fuel economy: 16.81L/100km (approximately)
Price: TBA (but you can aim for about $800,000)
This story is from the August issue of WISH.
