Rolls-Royce Cullinan vs Mercedes-Benz G580

What's the difference?

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.

Imagine jumping in the time machine, zapping back to the late 1970s and bringing the team that produced the original Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen into 2025 and showing them where their creation has landed close to half a century later.  

They’d be amazed a vehicle looking so much like their military-focused, first-generation model even existed! And once they’d absorbed that incredible fact they’d be stunned to see what lurks under its familiar bodywork. 

Because this is the most recent iteration of what’s now referred to as the G-Glass, the pure-electric G580 featuring four individually controlled electric motors - one at each wheel - collectively producing enough energy to power a small town. 

Stay with us as we explore this take-no-prisoners EV 4WD that has multiple show-stopping, high-tech party tricks lurking up its sleeve.