First review of the Rolls-Royce Cullinan 2019 reader: tetonic change

In Jackson, Wyoming, things get a little weird. About half a million people live throughout the state, but the filthy rich of Jackson, invaded by Cheneys and Gateses, and their ilk. The next working ranch could be owned by Harrison Ford, or Kanye West, who took the cover shot of Ye this year, mostly from his threshold.

Maybe that's the altitude?

Jackson is also getting into more prosaic pickups and Subaru Outbacks, but we'll guess that soon it will be in Rolls-Royce Cullinans.

With the Cullinan, Rolls-Royce does not just have its first SUV. It also has the most ingenious tool for extracting ultra-rich drivers from their Range Rovers and Bentaygas, which we are presumed to have turned into unfortunate debris. The Cullinan boasts many debuts and better, with a big plus: a $ 325,000 SUV in standard trim, this is the most expensive SUV offered by a major manufacturer.

Flying brick

We, the enthusiasts, are in the shadow of SUVs when we call them flying bricks, and the Cullinan calls us totally into our bullshit. His front is as flat as a branded board, illuminated by an Instagram glow. The pillars of the rear roof could contain a house by the sea. The middle section is built as a powerlifter. It should not work well, but it is excessive.

Yes, the Cullinan, named after the 3,107 carat diamond mined in South Africa and sent to the British crown as a colonial corpse, carries its huge ribs without a sigh of guilt. Rolls thinks that the Cullinan has "the prominent forehead of a Saxon warrior", which we wish the public to recognize on our face. (Our Hybrid Limiters have stopped working at high elevations in Wyoming.) Its sturdy square-mesh roofline ends in a subtle wing that hides a wiper blade. A light trunk lid takes a bit of the classic shape of the London taxi, framed by tiny rectangular taillights.

Do not miss it: get ready for the $ 2 million Rolls-Royce Cullinan limousine

The doors of the car open midway in the center of the car to expose a cockpit built around a double cockpit dashboard, large digital display strips and a little less formal wood trim and in chrome than in other Rolls-Royces, although they certainly available on order.

The austerity of a Range Rover is nowhere else, except perhaps in the gray-on-black instruments. The wood-style metal window switches adorn the door panels and the leather door dash stamps the texture of an expensive luggage. The cap is made of leather epaulets and the entire cabin's wooden trim, cut from a single veneer roll.

It's a nude description of what is really a nude canvas. Rolls associates Cullinan drivers with Cullinan designers to design custom-contoured vehicles; some drivers even bring "look books" with ideas that can be interpreted by designers in a spooky fantasy: a glove box lined with turquoise leather, peppermint green accented seats or a zebra striped wooden dash framed in leather mandarin.

Remote control

Seen from the view of the large hood with long nose, the Cullinan tries to separate as much as possible its occupants from the outside world. It's an amicable split.

The first four-wheel-drive Rolls-Royce wagon requires considerable power to motivate its empty weight of 6,069 pounds of parking space. The 6.8-liter twin-turbocharged V-12 from the Phantom needs it. With 563 horsepower and 627 lb-ft of torque, developed at 1,600 rpm, the V-12 allows the Cullinan to fly in the air at an extremely respectable pace. It consumes only 5.0 seconds in a race at 60 mph and a top speed of 155 mph.

The assertive push that pushes the passengers into their seat causes only a slight wave noise induced by the V-12. It does not take much to transfer the light dose of music from Cullinan's engine into an electric car key. (Although we are not yet talking about other powertrains, the architecture is designed to host different propulsion systems, such as a plug-in hybrid that will surely come.) It's so quiet you need to study a data sheet to realize that the Cullinan has 8 automatic speed. The changes could occur in another car. Or next in Idaho. Who knows what's going on there.

MORE: Customize your Cullinan: Rolls-Royce launches the configurator for SUV

The Cullinan is a slightly balanced all-wheel drive machine at the rear. at a power split of 40:60. It can transfer 90% of torque to the rear wheels, but it does not have a differential lock or true torque vector; it is based on an anti-lock braking system to dampen excessive slippage and on a descent control that switches from 2 to 18 mph to manage descents.

Can it off-road? We've passed toboggan runs and rocky but mostly dry dirt roads, but we do not have access to the large box of SUVs, but the Cullinan does not have the harsher controls of a Range Rover. There is an "Off-Road" button on the console that can switch between six pull modes (snow, wet grass, sand, rough trails, mud and gravel), and it can run about 21 inches of water, but an intense rock crawl is simply not his game, not with standard 21-inch summer tires and a 5.7-inch ground clearance, although this increases 1.6 inches with its air springs to full climb.

No, the Cullinan is an all-time wagon to the soul, and he prefers to think about the pulling plan for you rather than worrying. These large air suspensions combine with adaptive dampers and a multi-link suspension to absorb large breaks in the ground (or sidewalk) and dissolve them in slight agitations that pass through the cabin without being noticed, such as an earthquake of 2, 5 LA

The focus is on seamless driving control, and the Cullinan has it. The same self-leveling air suspension that can lower or raise the vehicle bypassing the roadway or through trenches can push on individual wheels as they rotate to restore traction. There is no Sport mode to ensure a firmer ride. Cullinan continues to sail, almost unconscious of the conditions of the world that inhabits him.

Despite all this, the Cullinan has the lightness but precision that is expected of a vehicle with a large diameter steering wheel, a lot of electric power steering and a rear wheel steering that can direct the rear wheels up to 3 degrees at a maximum speed of 54 mph. The Cullinan changes direction precisely, plunges into curves with lots of lean body, while maintaining balance.