Most people who ask about a Cullinan have already ridden in a Ghost or a Phantom and want to know what the tall one adds. The honest answer is not grandeur, because the saloons have more of that. What it adds is reach. It goes up a farm track, through a flooded lane and across a wet field margin without anybody having to think about it, and it does so while still feeling like a Rolls-Royce inside.
This guide describes the rear compartment as you will meet it, explains the two seating layouts because they change the journey considerably, and sets out what the height does for the view and for getting in. It also says plainly where a Cullinan is the wrong booking, which is more often than the photographs suggest. Knowing that saves you from paying for capability you will never call on.
A Rolls-Royce built for bad roads
The Cullinan shares its aluminium architecture with the Phantom, which is why the ride has the same unhurried quality, but it stands taller, drives all four wheels and sits on air suspension that levels itself as the load and the surface change. On a rutted estate drive the body stays level while the wheels deal with the mess underneath. Passengers notice the absence of the thumping and pattering they expect from a large vehicle on a rough surface.
That capability is not theatre. A great many of the houses, shoots and rural weddings we are asked to reach sit at the end of half a mile of unmade track, often in February. A low saloon can be driven along one carefully; a Cullinan simply goes, and arrives clean enough to photograph. It is the motor car that removes that worry entirely.
Sitting high in a Rolls-Royce
The seating position is the first thing passengers remark on. You sit upright rather than reclined, high enough to see over hedgerows and stone walls, and the glass is deep on every side. For touring this changes the day completely, because the countryside is visible rather than glimpsed. It also suits anyone who dislikes the enclosed feeling of a low, dark rear compartment with a high waistline and small windows.
Getting in is a step across rather than a climb up, helped by air suspension that can be dropped before the doors open on cars specified with that function. The rear doors are hinged at the back in the Rolls-Royce manner, so the opening faces you and there is no door frame to duck around. Your chauffeur manages them throughout; the doors are heavy, and on some cars they close at the touch of a button.
Lounge seats or individual seats
Cullinans are commissioned with one of two rear arrangements and it is worth knowing which you have. The lounge configuration is a bench for three that folds to extend the load area, and it is the practical choice for a family or a party of four with equipment. The individual configuration replaces it with two separate seats divided by a fixed console, which is the more indulgent arrangement and carries four people in total.
Individual-seat cars are usually the ones fitted with a glass partition behind the seats, which shuts the load area off and keeps the cabin quieter still. They also give each passenger an armrest and their own defined space, at the cost of the third rear seat and the folding floor. Neither layout is better in the abstract. Tell us whether you are carrying people or things and the choice makes itself.
What varies between commissions
Every Rolls-Royce leaves the works as an individual commission, so no two Cullinans are alike and nothing on this list should be assumed. These are simply the features clients ask about most often, and we will tell you what the particular motor car assigned to your booking actually carries once your date is held. Asking is quicker than hoping, and it avoids the small disappointment of expecting something that was never ordered.
Colour is the other variable and the one that matters most for photographs. Paint on these motor cars ranges from near-black through silver and deep blue to two-tone finishes, and the interior hide may be light or dark. Neither can be assumed from a website photograph, so tell us what you had in mind and it will be checked against what is free.
- A starlight headliner, with the density of fibres varying by order
- Rear picnic tables and folding screens, fitted to some cars and not others
- A glass partition dividing the cabin from the load area
- Powered closing for the rear coach doors
- Umbrellas stowed within the front doors and released by a catch
- Deep lambswool overmats, which are beautiful and mark easily
The tailgate and the space behind
The tailgate splits into two, an upper section that lifts and a lower one that drops to form a broad, flat ledge. It is a genuinely useful piece of design at a shoot, a point-to-point or a wet touchline, because it gives you somewhere clean to sit, to change footwear or to stand a flask. Rolls-Royce also offers a pair of seats that deploy from the load area for exactly that purpose.
For ordinary journeys the lower section matters for a different reason. It takes the weight of a case while it is being slid in, which spares the paint and the chauffeur's back, and it means loading can happen in a tight bay without a full tailgate swinging up into a low ceiling. Ask before you assume the deployable seats are there; they are a commonly omitted option.
When something else suits better
For a short city transfer the Cullinan is a poor choice and we will say so. It is tall, wide and conspicuous, awkward in a multi-storey car park with a low ceiling, and it delivers nothing over a Ghost on twenty minutes of Park Lane. If the day is entirely urban and entirely on tarmac, the saloon is the better motor car and by some distance the easier one to place at a kerb.
Supply is the other consideration. These are scarce cars nationally, they are arranged from our own vehicles and from a vetted network of professional chauffeur operators, and there is rarely an identical one standing spare. Model year, paint, interior hide and options are subject to availability and are confirmed with the booking rather than promised at the enquiry stage. Summer wedding dates go earliest of all.
A short message settles most of it. Send the points below on WhatsApp or by email and we will come back with what can genuinely be held for your date. If the answer is that a Ghost or a Range Rover serves you better, you will be told that too. A car that suits the day matters a good deal more than the badge on the bonnet.
- The date, and how much of the day the motor car is needed for
- Whether the roads or drives involved are unmade, steep or narrow
- Number of passengers, so the seat layout can be matched
- Anything bulky travelling, since that decides the rear layout
