Rolls-Royce’s equivalent of a Life Cycle Impulse is the Series II. The Cullinan received its mid-cycle facelift earlier this month and now it’s making its first public appearance. We shot the ultra-premium SUV this weekend in Italy at the 2024 Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este. The world’s fanciest luxobarge shows its striking front fascia in live images from Lake Como.
For the first time since the Cullinan was launched in 2018, it now has an illuminated grille. It echoes other Rolls-Royce models and the more “mundane” BMWs. The imposingly large pantheon grille is flanked by redesigned headlights with extended daytime running lights. The DRLs now extend downward, making it immediately obvious the family hauler from Goodwood has a new look. By removing the horizontal slats the pre-facelift model had, RR created a large flat area below the headlights. This bold change was apparently made to put an “emphasis on clean, monolithic surfaces.”
There are less obvious tweaks if you know where to look. The Cullinan Series II gets a brushed stainless-steel plate mounted between the exhausts. It extends below the vehicle and is there to protect the underbody. Those wheels mark the debut of a stately 23-inch set on the Rolls-Royce of SUVs. The new alloys have a seven-spoke design and can be had with a finish that’s either fully or partially polished.
While a typical RR can be had in just about any color the wealthy buyer dreams of the night before, this Emperador Truffle is new. It’s touted as a “richly-veined brown marble” hue on top of which there’s a lacquer with glass particles to make it pop. While the Cullinan from Villa d’Este was the “regular” version, we’ve already seen the Black Badge with its dark grille and different 23-inch wheels.
It remains to be seen whether one-percenters will get used to the controversial front end ushered in by the Cullinan Series II. The rest of the posh SUV has remained largely the same inside and out. That includes the twin-turbo 6.75-liter engine as the V12 is unchanged, still making nearly 600 horsepower and 900 Newton-meters (664 pound-feet) of torque in the Black Badge.