Today, Rolls-Royce officially announced the Black Badge version of its hyper-luxury SUV, the Cullinan. Rolls-Royce’s Black Badge line is, as the company puts it, “a darker image that defines the taste of a younger generation of luxury consumer.” It’s also woefully inadequate in many ways.
Before that, though, you should hear what Torsten Müller-Ötvös, CEO of Rolls-Royce and umlaut enthusiast, says about this Black Badge line:
Black Badge reflects the desires of a distinct group of Rolls-Royce clients: men and women who take risks, break rules and build success on their own terms. The time has come for Rolls-Royce’s boldest and darkest expression of Black Badge yet. The King of the Night, Black Badge Cullinan.
Do you remember what happened to the Night King? Maybe a bad example.
Here’s ten ways this thing falls severely short of the mark, and why you’re better off spending your $382,000 on a fleet of Lada Nivas and finely restored AMC Matadors:
1. The turn indicator stalk is dangerously unpadded
You could break your finger on one of those hard plastic things.
2. None of the touchscreens in the Cullinan are heated
This is an invitation for severe frostbite. When exposed to, say, the vacuum of space, those surfaces can drop in temperature to nearly zero degrees Kelvin.
3. The cupholders are not paid servants in evening wear crouching by the seats, ready to hold your drink.
They’re just cylindrical holes! What the hell is this thing, a Hyundai Santa Fe?
4. The headlamps emit conventional, visible spectrum light instead of a particle beam that forces other objects to illuminate themselves for you.
Why should you have to be responsible for illuminating everything in front of you? Objects should be forced to glow for you. You’re the King of the Goddamn Night.
5. It has the first painted brake calipers in Rolls-Royce history.
...which means those brake calipers have zero heritage or history, and are, as a result, garbage.
6. The headliner uses 1,344 fiber optic lights to simulate stars instead of actually being a micro-universe full of actual orbs of incandescent gas using fusion to produce light and heat.
It’s not a night sky at all! It’s some off-strip Vegas bathroom-ceiling-grade trick! What the fuck?
7. They only bumped up the horsepower from that 6.75-liter V12 by 29 HP, for an anemic total of 600 HP.
That’s what, about 88 HP per liter? A Honda Civic Type R makes about 153 HP per liter. Way to phone it in, guys. Besides, I can’t get out of bed for less than 1,000 HP.
8. There’s no humidifier or humidor or anything and all of the dash instruments just use regular old letters and numerals instead of something more exclusive and better.
That’s more than one, but I don’t care anymore. I’m too angry.
9. It can never really love you.
I know. I’ve tried.
Save your money, people.
(And yes, I’m enrolled in Fancy Kristen’s Training Academy of Superiority via Resources.)