Simple Pleasures

Rolls-Royce is rewriting the rulebook on what luxury and opulence means.

- Dary Llee

It’s almost odd the way Rolls-Royce skirts around certain words.

You could talk to anyone at the British automaker about how the Cullinan is an SUV, or how the act of owning a Rolls-Royce starts with a purchase, or even how its customers are, well, customers, and you can see in their eyes the briefest hint of a twinge.

That twinge may emanate from how they’re trying to wrestle with the delicate balancing act of correcting you without seeming as though they’re correcting you. This is, after all, a brand for which an adamant refusal to refuse is the firmament on which all its values are built upon.

The Cullinan isn’t an SUV, it’s an all-terrain, high-sided vehicle. The first step toward having a Rolls-Royce parked in your garage begins with commissioning, and its customers, as befitting someone commissioning a work of fine art, are referred to as ‘patrons’. And when it refers to the direction in which the carmaker is heading, it’s in the direction of “post-opulence”.

You see, while all the terms I mentioned in the first place are technically correct, they don’t quite capture the essence of what Rolls-Royce is trying to convey – to say nothing of how tawdry and base they are. And you should know by now that a Rolls-Royce is the polar opposite of tawdry and base.