Rolls-Royce Cullinan vs Mercedes-Benz E300

What's the difference?

The Cullinan might not be the most beautiful or traditional Rolls-Royce, and it’s a shame modern success means providing an SUV option to everyone, but it’s still a remarkable machine, either to drive or just to sit in. It remains not just a marvel of engineering, but a marvellous of engineering. Hats doffed, old bean.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.

The E-Class is stacked with kit, looks great, and is an effective and comfortable way to get around in built-up areas or across the countryside.

While it’s not the most dynamically engaging - it’s pipped by its Bavarian rival there - it offers more comfort-oriented features than most, and the cabin is a pleasant place to spend a day driving.

If you're disposed towards stumping up the asking price, the extra outlay for the 'Plus Package' will probably be most relevant to you if you’re covering long distances due to the Airmatic suspension.

Otherwise, even a simple-spec E300 provides a step up from what you might expect from an executive sedan.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with accommodation and meals provided.

It is something of an achievement when a team of designers manage to make a facelifted version of a vehicle less ugly, daunting and disappointing than the original.

I thought the first Cullinan, launched five years ago, looked like a London black cab that had been mounted and inseminated by a double-decker bus. Big? Sure? Impressive? Yes. Beautiful? Only if you think Boris Johnson is sexy.

There was a lot of chat at the launch about the changes made for Series II, but in summary they tried to make it look more… like a boat, according to Exterior Design Lead Henry Clarke.

“We don’t look for speedy, overcomplicated lines, we take our inspiration from the luxury world, and it’s often from yachts, it’s that same sense of scale and grandeur, that’s the key to the timelessness of a Rolls-Royce,” he explained.

“We’re not focused on the world of automotive design, and if you look at the Cullinan it has that ethos you think of with a yacht, that strong, vital bow and then everything rearwards, the back of a yacht, has an elegance and grace to it.”

Fair enough, but what I appreciated was that they’ve squared the front end off a bit more, by outlining the grille, adding some gills beneath it and putting in some natty DRLs, and then rounded off the rear a little as well, so that it looks less… awful.

Indeed, after a couple of days of staring at it (and particularly admiring how good it looks in your rear-view mirror when behind you), I did come around to its looks. Certainly a lot more than last time.

And strangers driving past seemed to really like it, because they keep smiling and clapping at me. 

Evolution rather than revolution is obvious when it comes to the E-Class’ styling, but that’s in Mercedes’ best interests, because it’s still a good-looking thing, and being a bit subtle is warranted in the executive sedan game.

The biggest changes come in the headlights and tail-lights. Up-front there are now more than one million pixels in the LED headlights, which have adaptive high beam as standard and are more connected to the grille via black trim, as has been seen in EQ electric models.

Underneath, the bumper now features an AMG-style 'A-wing' apron as part of the 'AMG Line' exterior package as standard. A set of 20-inch AMG alloys are also included.

To the rear, and the digital tail-lights feature a Mercedes-Benz star motif, making its lighting signature now more recognisable from behind.

The German Rainbow is well-represented with mostly shades of grey, black, or white available, though 'Verde Silver Metallic' is a slightly retro green, and 'Nautic Blue Metallic' is a subtle and classy tone.

The daring ‘Manufaktur’ shade of 'Patagonia Red Metallic' is a $2500 option, as is 'Opalite White Bright' while 'Alpine Grey Solid' is $2900.

In terms of being a vehicle you might actually use - and keeping in mind that if you can afford one of these you’ve also got at least a half dozen other choices - every day, the Cullinan is the pick of the Rolls-Royce enclosure.

From the big boot space - 600 litres with the seats up, 1930 litres with them down - and its lovely little Viewing Suite, through the spacious rear relaxing zone to the absurdly comfortable and plush front seats, there’s a sense of grandeur about the whole Cullinan experience.

You can opt for a champagne fridge between those rear seats, if you like, or you can just lie back and stare at the blinking pins of light in your 'Starlight Headliner' and imagine that each one of them represents one of your millions, smiling down at you.

It’s a lovely place to be, in short, and with its super-thick double glazed glass, coated with an acoustic layer on top of that, and carpets thick enough to keep out road noise on their own, it’s also a very pleasantly quiet one.

Inside, the E-Class should feel familiar to anyone who’s spent time in a recent Benz, though the Superscreen might be the main point of difference. It’s an immediately comfortable place, though, with a relatively visually busy cabin.

The seats and their adjustability mean most drivers and passengers, regardless of height and size, should feel supported (and ideally relaxed), while touch-points are mostly either leather upholstery or digital screens.

The steering wheel, also seen in plenty of other Mercedes models, is a bit of a let-down, however, with its haptic touch pads on a slightly busy two-tier layout. This millennial found it irritating, surely too will the usually older E-Class buyer.

There are a few other small annoyances, one being that the MBUX Assistant sometimes won’t hear a command, or that not everything seems to be able to be controlled by it. The climate control vent positions are electrically adjustable to certain pre-sets through the menu, but the MBUX Assistant isn’t able to do this for you.

And while the driver display and central multimedia screen are fairly user-friendly, it’s not always immediately apparent what the quickest way to find some information or a setting is.

Our test car was fitted with the 'Plus Package', which means four-zone climate control available to the rear seats, which my 180cm-tall self found spacious with plenty of headroom, kneeroom, and even a fair bit of room under the driver’s seat.

Behind the rear seats, there’s a generous 540 litres of boot space, exactly the same capacity as the previous generation E-Class.

While cross-shopping the E-Class and a BMW 5 Series would normally be relatively easy, the Merc’s $131,500 starting price, before on-road costs, puts it plenty north of the base 520i, the only petrol one available, at $114,900. The electric i5 eDrive40 starts from $155,900, more than $20K over the Mercedes.

But the E-Class is stacked with features as standard, and while there are a couple of option packs, Mercedes Australia has tried to streamline the most popular features and specifications into the E300.

Its $131,500 price gets you a tech-heavy sedan with Merc’s latest 'MBUX' system housed in a visually impressive, if perhaps unnecessary, 'Superscreen' dash.

The dual-screen set-up incorporates a main 14.4-inch central multimedia touchscreen and a 12.3-inch display for the passenger, allowing the driver to keep, for example, a map visible while a passenger sorts out media or comfort settings.

The system is also designed to avoid taking users through sub-menus, though can be bypassed by wireless Android Auto or Apple CarPlay.

It also features a selfie camera mounted to the dash, which is disabled for the Australian market at present. Mercedes-Benz Australia hopes to change this soon.

Mercedes also plans to allow the MBUX system to learn what settings and functions will be most useful to the driver under certain conditions, but currently users are able to manually create so-called ‘Routines’ such as setting the climate control and seats to warm up if it’s below a certain temperature, and can even adjust the ambient lighting to a warmer colour.

More automation comes in the brand’s MBUX ‘Hey Mercedes’ system, which can now respond to commands without the driver needing to say “Hey Mercedes”. 

Heated and vented front seats, leather upholstery, wireless phone charging, and a 17-speaker Burmester sound system with Dolby Atmos 4D sound are also standard - the latter being a clever feature that positions different elements of the audio, usually music, to give a 360-degree feeling, as well as turning bassier tones into a physical vibration via “tactile transducers” in each front seat’s backrest. Good for bassline junkies, then (apologies to Mr. Rascal).

With the $9400 'Plus Package', the E-Class also comes with 'Airmatic' suspension and rear-axle steering (which I’ll touch more on later), power-closing doors, 'Urban Guard' to monitor your vehicle while it’s parked, an illuminated grille up front, a more capable version of the MBUX 'Interior Assistant', four-zone climate control and Mercedes’ 'Digital Light' function, which uses the more-than one-million pixels in the headlights to project onto the road or surface in front of you when turning the car off or in driving situations to alert road users of potential danger.

A $6200 'Energising Package' adds multicontour front seats with comfort headrests, upgraded climate controls with 'Air-Balance' and fragrances, upgraded seat heating with armrest heating for the front occupants and heated seats for the rear.

Rolls-Royce has committed to being a fully EV brand by 2030, so it’s a safe bet this Series II Cullinan will be the last one offered with its storming, staunch V12 engine. 

Indeed, Rolls hinted the only reason it hung around in this version is that this is only a mid-life face-lift for the Cullinan, and the car that replaces it will arrive on an entirely new, all-electric platform.

As good as the EV Roller, the Spectre undeniably is, driving this old-school Cullinan with its 6.75-litre twin-turbocharged V12 making the kind of thumping, torque-thick, nothing-is-too-much-trouble acceleration is a hoot.

It’s not loud, but it’s just loud enough that you can enjoy its deep, brassy tones, and it’s got plenty of power in reserve to hurl even this 2.75-tonne machine past lesser vehicles with ease.

There are two Cullinans to choose from, of course, with the base model providing a very pleasant 420kW and 850Nm or the sportier Black Badge version (Rolls calls it the brand’s “alter ego”) with 441kW and 900Nm. 

This lone E-Class variant is powered by a turbocharged 2.0-litre engine pumping out 190kW and 400Nm, assisted by a 48-volt battery system. Under EQ boost, an extra 17kW and 205Nm is available for a short time.

It’s hooked up to a nine-speed auto that drives the rear wheels, and it’s all pretty traditional… for 2024, that is.

Mercedes says the E300 is able to hit 100km/h in a respectable 6.3 seconds.

Rolls-Royce claims the Cullinan will provide you with between 16 litres per 100km and 16.8L/100km, but I believe you’d have to drive it quite steadily to achieve even that quite appalling figure.

Twelve cylinders, 2.75 tonnes, you do the math, but it's interesting to note that with a nearly full tank - and we’re talking 100 litres of fuel - my distance to empty was looking like barely more than 500km - that’s an EV-like number.

Mercedes claims the E-Class drinks 7.2L/100km on the combined cycle, and though we weren’t able to test that properly at the pump on the launch program, the trip computer showed up to 9.4L/100km after some quite spirited driving, which gradually averaged out to about 8.6L/100km in the afternoon once some more calm, E-Class-appropriate distance had been covered.

With its 50L fuel tank, the E-Class should theoretically be able to cover 694km on a single tank if the 7.2L/100km is achieved, though realistically it would be much less, 550-600km depending on driving style.

The first word that comes to mind when describing the experience of driving a Rolls-Royce the size of a small housing estate is 'intimidating', because it's one of those cars where you take a few deep breaths before setting off (while muttering “please don’t crash it”) and then some sharp intakes of breath the first few times you find cars coming towards you on a narrow road, of which there are many on Ibiza where we were summoned to drive it.

I followed a panicked young man from India who had never driven a Rolls, nor a left-hand-drive car before, and boy, he sure looked intimidated, even if he didn’t ever get above 30km/h.

The incredible thing about the Cullinan, however, is how quickly it relaxes you and how astonishingly light and easy it is to drive. The steering feels almost absurdly light at first, you really can drive it with just one finger, two if you’re feeling cautious, but once you get used to it it just feels very Rolls-Royce.

The whole brand lives on the idea of effortlessness, wafting over the world, and the much-touted 'Magic Carpet Ride', and it really does deliver that sense of ease. You’re almost as relaxed at the wheel as you are in the rear seat (and the massage functions only make you feel more so). 

Speed humps do upset the Cullinan, but only a very little, and you’re aware when the car finds broken surfaces, but only distantly so. It feels like someone is dealing with bumps and imperfections in a far-off-place, perhaps the car’s basement, and it shouldn’t worry you too much.

When traffic annoys you, you can just make it disappear by engaging your whumping V12 engine and making the world go briefly blurry. 

Attempt to throw the Cullinan through sharp bends at speed, however, and it reacts in much the same way you’d expect the cruise ship it somewhat resembles to.

There’s a bit of body roll, but it’s all quite polite and a sense that if you need to drive like that, perhaps you should go and get one of your other cars.

The Black Badge version does feel just a trifle sportier than the base Cullinan but we’re splitting very grey and expensively coiffed hairs here.

The overall experience is one of grand relaxation, imperiousness and a certain touch of superior glee.

While the E-Class has taken fairly sizeable steps in terms of its tech, it remains a fairly traditional car from behind the wheel, save for a few small changes like its mild-hybrid system and rear-wheel steering.

It’s still a petrol-powered rear-drive sedan, and it feels built more for eating up highway kilometres than it does tackling twisty turns. But that’s okay, because it will still do the latter.

Comfort is the main focus, clearly, for the E300, and the big Merc does it well. We weren’t offered a car without Airmatic air suspension on the launch, but the E-Class doesn’t seem like it would be particularly rough without it.

With it, however, large bumps and minor road annoyances only make their way into the cabin in the sense that you’re aware of them, but not bothered by them.

That slight dulling of feedback does extend to the steering wheel however, where, despite the rear-wheel steering making the car more nimble, the feedback to the driver is less encouraging of eager driving. 

While 190kW on paper doesn’t seem like enough, the E-Class makes do with its meagre engine quite well - and even though it can seem like it’s working a bit too hard at times, the E-Class’ natural state isn’t responding to a planted foot, so it’s unlikely to be a daily bother.

Engine noise, as well as wind and road noise are suitably dulled by the E300’s NVH fitout, too.

The tuning of its drive modes, in particular Comfort and Sport, seemed well-judged on our drive loop, with the option to set the 'Individual' mode to a custom configuration, most elements in Comfort while the drivetrain is set to Sport is particularly helpful when on gentle, high-speed country roads.

If you do start to approach the limits of the big sedan’s capability, it’ll let you know fairly early on. The heavy E-Class isn’t prone to sudden lurching or poor handling, and isn’t much phased by mid-corner bumps.

It’s not as dynamically engaging as some rivals, particularly the 5 Series, but it does appear to be a better provider of cross-country comfort.

ANCAP hasn’t had a go at crash-testing the E-Class yet, and it might not given the relatively small number that will be sold here compared to volume models, but Mercedes’ track record with safety is pretty stellar, and it’s extremely rare for a Mercedes to not cop the maximum five stars.

In the new E300 there are 11 airbags - plenty for a sedan. Mercedes lists front airbags, knee bags and pelvic/thorax airbags for the driver and front passenger, side bags for the rear and a front centre airbag.

It also comes with a fairly extensive suite of safety tech, including the usual ABS, lane-keep assist, blind spot monitoring and surround-view parking cameras.

But on top of that, there’s also ‘Evasive Steering Assist’, semi-automated cruise control with sign recognition, distance assist for following leading vehicles and can even project light arrows onto the road if leaving your lane, when 'Digital Lights' are optioned.

The E-Class also has a function if an imminent collision is detected in which it can, depending on the type of collision, take occupant protection measures. In the case of a side-on collision, the E-Class can “move an affected front occupant towards the centre of the car” before impact.

Questions about service intervals and warranties seem to confuse the people at Rolls, as if none of their customers have ever bothered to ask.

Yes, you would think servicing would be free when you’re pushing a $1 million price tag, and that the warranty would be for life, particularly considering the low mileage on these things, but it is, in fact, just a four-year servicing and warranty offer for Australian customers of this vehicle. So that means an unlimited-mileage warranty, including all services, for the first four years (at which point you obviously buy a new one). "Rolls-Royce Motor Cars will offer a service inclusive package but no pricing available yet and this will not be required until the fifth year of ownership."

The E-Class comes with Mercedes’ fairly industry standard five-year, unlimited kilometre warranty, though Mercedes-Benz Australia was unable to confirm exact servicing pricing on the launch. 

It does however list pricing for the E-Class on its website for a three-service pack at $3325, four at $4535, and five at $6800, the latter averaging out to $1360 each.

This could increase with the new generation car, and Mercedes doesn’t list estimated serving pricing for new E-Classes yet in its booking system (I checked with one of the test cars).

Servicing intervals are every 12 months or 25,000km, whichever comes first.