BMW X6 vs Rolls-Royce Cullinan

What's the difference?

First launched in 2008, the BMW X6 created history (and a new car category) with its coupe styling on an SUV framework.

It was a polarising effort but one that opened up the SUV market for those wanting the size and presence of an SUV without compromising on the sporty styling of a smaller car.

The 2024 X6 has had a facelift and that brings a more athletic and robust kerb-side appeal that might swing a few fence sitters onto the side of liking it.

The already pleasant interior has been polished with extra customisations available on trims and accents. The technology has seen the biggest upgrade and it now features a more streamlined mild-hybrid component to the engine. It all positions the X6 well and truly within the rank of luxury.

For the last week I’ve been driving the mid-spec xDrive40i M Sport variant to see how the facelifted model holds its own against rivals, the Audi Q8 55 TFSI Dynamic Black and Mercedes-Benz GLE450 4Matic Coupe. 

The truly great thing about great wealth - I mean like, drop $1 million on a new Rolls-Royce with a casual yawn and a mouse click wealth - would be how great it is not having to do anything for yourself.

Personally, I would hire a chef, so I’d never have to cook again, and a pilot to fly my private jet, so I’d never have to catch pneumonia while flying 34 hours to Ibiza with strangers to do my weird job (oh, and if I was rich I wouldn’t have to work anyway), and in theory I might even hire a chauffeur for those odd times when I didn’t want to drive myself in one of my fleet of beautiful cars. 

All right, so I can’t even imagine that last one, but the most interesting fact I gleaned while in Spain, tirelessly testing the new Rolls-Royce Cullinan Series II, is that even the ridiculously rich are falling out of love with not driving these days.

Perhaps, being tech-savvy types, they can see the end of driving and the rise of autonomy coming and they want to make the most of it while they still can. But according to Rolls, the percentage of its buyers who sit in the back rather than in the driver’s seat has flipped entirely over the past 15 years.

Back in the day, 80 per cent of Rolls owners were back-seat passengers, blowing cigar smoke at the back of a chauffeur’s head, while 20 per cent actually drove their expensive motors.

Today, the number who drive themselves has soared to 80 per cent, and apparently that’s not just because it would feel weird being chauffeured around in what is now the most popular Rolls-Royce by far - the Cullinan SUV.

The other big change, apparently, is that the average age of a Rolls-Royce buyer has also dropped, from 56 to the low 40s. And that means more buyers with kids, and gold-plated prams and other associated dross, which means they need bigger Rolls-Royces, family-sized SUV ones, which again helps to explain why the Cullinan now makes up as much as half of all the brand’s sales in some markets.

And why the arrival of this, the facelifted, tweaked and twirled Series II version of a car that was greeted cynically by many in the media when it arrived (“one group was not sceptical, and that was our clients,” as a Rolls spokeswoman delightedly pointed out) is such a big deal.