Rolls-Royce goes off-road with its Cullinan - and vows not to make hybrids
You can drive in style to the opera house in this SUV – but you can also take it for a romp over the roughest of terrains, says Torsten Müller-Otvös, RR CEO
This week, Rolls-Royce unleashed its US$325,000 Cullinan on the back roads and double-diamond ski runs of Wyoming’s Grand Teton mountain range.
The press launch was the first time the 6,000-pound (2,720kg) SUV had been driven publicly in North America, timed to get out word of the vehicle’s off-road skills right before November’s chill – and January’s first deliveries.
Torsten Müller-Otvös was there, too. Rolls-Royce’s long-time CEO has shepherded the brand to a 13.5 per cent sales increase this year to date, and this month the company announced it added 200 jobs in an effort to meet Cullinan demand. (That gain means Rolls-Royce will expand its workforce to more than 2,000 people for the first time, a sixfold increase since the British automaker’s headquarters and manufacturing facility in Goodwood, West Sussex, opened in 2003.)
Müller-Otvös, an accomplished fly fisherman who prefers the Cullinan in magma red, sat down with Bloomberg to discuss why it’s so important for it to go off-road, its prospects for getting an electric drivetrain, and what he says to the Cullinan’s critics.
Here’s our conversation.
Hannah Elliott: The emphasis for this launch has seemed to emphasise the off-road capability of Cullinan above all else. Is that true? Did you feel the need to make a statement in this way with this launch?
Torsten Müller-Otvös: It is. First of all, you don’t need to be convinced that our cars drive perfect on roads, flat on land. That’s given. That’s the Rolls-Royce brand promise. And Cullinan delivers that in perfection. But, of course, we wanted to showcase to you what the car is capable of. We sent all the test cars all over the world, into the desert, into the mountains, just to showcase what the car is capable of and what it can deliver, so that customers also understand the car is a true SUV.
But it’s also a Rolls-Royce SUV: you can drive up in style in front of the opera building, you can go out for dinner with all your friends. This car brings you up to your chalet. It can carry lots of loads, it can carry the whole family, load your dogs into the car, go down to the harbour. So it is for all purposes in life.
