Rolls-Royce 20-25, page #3

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Trump reportedly says he wants to wipe German cars off the U.S. map

BERLIN/FRANKFURT — A report that U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to pursue German carmakers until there are no Mercedes-Benz rolling down New York's Fifth Avenue dented shares in the luxury car manufacturers on Thursday. An excerpt from German magazine Wirtschaftswoche's article, which cited several unnamed European and U.S. diplomats but did not include any direct quotes, could not be independently verified, while a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Berlin referred questions to Washington. The news and current affairs magazine said Trump had told French President Emmanuel Macron in April that he aimed to push German carmakers out of the United States altogether. Macron's administration in Paris declined to comment on the report. The Trump administration last week opened a so-called Section 232 trade investigation into vehicle imports, which could result in a 25 percent tariff on cars on the same "national security" grounds Washington used to impose metals duties in March. This could destroy exports by German carmakers, which control 90 percent of the U.S. premium market and are the biggest European Union exporters of cars to the United States. BMW owns Rolls-Royce, while Daimler has Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen controls Bentley, Bugatti, Porsche and Audi. Daimler, BMW and Audi declined comment. Porsche was not immediately available for comment. BMW shares were trading 0.5 percent lower at 0939 GMT, while Daimler and VW's shares were down 1 percent and 1.6 percent respectively, underperforming Germany's blue-chip DAX. Trump has railed against German carmakers before. And in early 2017, in an interview with German newspaper Bild, he said he would impose 35 percent tariffs on imported cars. At the time, the president called Germany a great car producer but said that the business relationship with the United States was an unfair one-way street. Germany's auto industry association VDA says its members exported 657,000 vehicles to North America last year, with total exports of vehicle components, cars, engines, as well as second-hand vehicles totaling 31.2 billion euros in 2016. Imports from the United States to Germany amounted to 7.4 billion euros, meaning a trade deficit of 23.8 billion euros the VDA's latest available figures show. However, German brands also have huge factories in the United States, where they built 804,000 cars last year, VDA said, providing jobs for U.S. workers. Berlin has reacted angrily to the U.S.

Rolls-Royce Cullinan configurator delivers a near-bespoke experience

Earlier this month we configured a McLaren Senna with the assistance of two representatives of McLaren Special Operations. In that piece we wrote about few chances there are for the online "shopper" to get a feel for the coachbuilt experience; the Ferrari LaFerrari configurator offered just three color options, for instance, and Bugatti removed the few variables it presented for the Chiron. McLaren didn't build a public configurator for the Senna. It's the Rolls-Royce Cullinan to the rescue — at least for now — with a brand new configurator that can keep you busy for hours. The Cullinan configurator lists seven categories: Inspired Specs, Exterior Style, Exterior Options, Interior Style, Interior Options, Personalization, and Accessories. Inspired Specs comprises eight themes, such as the sassy Urban (Hero), and the self-evident Wellness or Indulgence. To play outside the lines, go to Exterior style to choose one of 16 colors, 23 Coachlines (pinstripes) in single or double lines, seven wheels, and two wheel detail options — whether or not to have the wheel centers matched to the body color. Polish the exterior details with four options for the Spirit of Ecstasy, a satin silver hood, or a tow hitch. View 30 Photos Take a breather and a cup of Lady Grey tea, then dive in again with the interior, starting with six potential "schemes" or a bespoke interior module. We haven't worked out the permutations, but you can create a wildly large number of different cabins with the 20 different interior colors. The seats alone offer color choices for the inserts, gussets, inners, main body, and valance and seat backs. You can specify a color for the sun visors. Harley Quinn would love it. And after all that, you've still got three more categories to work though. We chose a Cullinan in Anthracite, with a double coachline in Creme Light, on 22-inch wheels, and with a trailer hitch — to tow our Icon A5 amphibious plane, because we already have a Ford F-450 Super Duty for the boat. A Tan interior mixed with Seashell accents should be a fine place to hear nothing of the outside world thanks to Rolls-Royce's sandwiched windows. But we're considering going with Ardent Red instead, so we'll see you over at the configurator. Related Video:

Rolls-Royce Cullinan revealed: Ultra-luxury SUV is so British, it curtsies

Why did we ever expect the Rolls-Royce Cullinan to look like anything other than a Phantom on a lift kit, minus the trunk? The Rolls-Royce of SUVs perfectly employs Phantom cues, from the raised hood to the strong shoulder line and coach doors. The English off-roader brings a bunch of brand-redefining firsts with it, including all-wheel drive, an off-road driving mode, and a suspension that actively extends the dampers to keep every wheel on the ground. All of the vehicle's innovations serve the tagline that will help sell the Cullinan to wealthy owners: "Effortless, Everywhere." View 30 Photos The Cullinan stretches 210 inches long on a 130-inch wheelbase, 17.2 inches shorter overall than a Phantom on a wheelbase 9.8 inches shorter. However, the SUV is 5.6 inches wider than the sedan and its roof stands 7.2 inches higher. Built around the same all-aluminum Architecture of Luxury as the Phantom, the extra bits that make the Cullinan ready for dirty work add just 200 pounds compared to the car, for a curb weight of 5,864 pounds. The 6.6-liter twin-turbo V12 (Rolls-Royce still refers to it as a 6.75-liter) produces 563 horsepower and 627 pound-feet of torque, matching the Phantom's horsepower but losing 37 lb-ft of torque. However, the remaining torque comes 100 rpm sooner in the Cullinan than in the Phantom. Rolls-Royce whipped up another narrative trick to keep the Cullinan from being associated with the two-box SUV herd, calling it "the first 'three-box' offer in the SUV sector." With only two boxes visible from outside, we assume Rolls-Royce refers to the available glass partition in the cabin separating the seating area from the cargo, for Cullinans equipped with individual second-row seats. That would make for three distinct areas, and serve as a "nod to the era when luggage was mounted on the exterior of the motor-car, so the occupants did not travel with their belongings." Speaking of which, the feature we normally call a "tailgate" is called "the Clasp" on the Cullinan, a reference to when drivers put luggage on the outside of the car. The electrically operated two-piece hatch has a narrow lower section that folds down to help support the electronic drawer in the Recreation Module. The module provides custom designed storage for tools suitable to an owner's hobbies, like hawking, hunting, or drone racing, or it can stow the seats and cocktail table for the Rolls-Royce Viewing Suite. The Cullinan earns its chops in the cabin and under the skin.

Watch the Rolls-Royce Cullinan tackle the sand dunes outside Dubai

The Rolls-Royce Cullinan is coming soon. The British automaker has made copious effort trying to keep the coming Cullinan from being considered just a crossover or SUV. The carmaker calls it an All-Terrain High-Sided Bodied Vehicle, and a feature as banal as a tailgate has been billed as a "luxuriously comfortable viewing platform." Yet when Rolls-Royce took a prototype Cullinan for testing in the Dubai dunes, they recorded their Phantom-based SUV ripping up the sand in ways you'd expect from a 30-year-old Chevrolet Blazer. As the Nurburgring became to cars, the dunes outside of Dubai have turned into a testing venue as useful as they are photogenic. Rolls-Royce's trip there follows a list of other luxury SUV makers, including Range Rover, Bentley, and most recently, Lamborghini. What caught our eye in this video is that outside of century-old, black-and-white photos of Charles Stuart Rolls hammering one of his early cars in contests like the 1906 Tourist Trophy, this is the first time we've ever seen Rolls-Royce do anything unabashedly racy off-road. It's as if they plucked Florida Man from the Soggy Bottom Mud Park, gave him the keys to a Cullinan and the challenge, "A case of Pabst says you can't break it." Fast forward to the 1:08 mark to get into the action. Obviously, we don't expect any Cullinan driver — save those Dubai hoons — to thrash a Cullinan like so. But it's nice to know the All-Terrain High-Sided Bodied Vehicle can do it. Related Video: News Source: Rolls-Royce [via YouTube] via Autoevolution Rolls-Royce SUV Future Vehicles Luxury Videos dubai rolls-royce cullinan

Rolls-Royce Wraith Luminary Collection gets celestial headliner

Rolls-Royce has announced a new bespoke collection for its Wraith 2-door luxury coupe that is highlighted, literally, by a headliner full of glittering shooting stars. It's called the Wraith Luminary Collection and its production will be limited to just 55 examples. The car is like its own planetarium on wheels, thanks to a starlight headliner concocted by the folks at the Rolls-Royce Bespoke Collective in Goodwood, West Sussex. It's a handwoven configuration of 1,340 fiber-optic lights mimicking the night sky — and even the occasional shooting star — and it takes 20 hours to configure. Rolls-Royce says eight shooting stars fire at random, mostly over the front seats. Open up the suicide doors and you'll see the celestial theme continued inside the cabin. Tudor oak wood veneer, sourced from forests in the Czech Republic and chosen for its depth of color and grain structure, is back-lit by 176 LED lights that permeates through intricate perforations in the veneer that form another starlight pattern at the touch of a button. "Linked to the controls of the starlight headliner, the cabin's veneer surrounds Wraith's occupants in an ambient glow of light," the luxury marque says. Outside, the Luminary Collection comes pained in Sunburst Grey with rich Saddlery Tan-colored lines hand painted along the bonnet and side body, a color scheme inspired by "the heady shade of the golden hour's sunrays" and referencing the interior leather color scheme. It's also echoed in the center of each wheel. Cockpit seats come trimmed in the same tan leather, while rear seats feature a contrasting Anthracite leather or an available Seashell color for the leather, matched by a two-tone steering wheel. The seats get contrasting piping and stitching tying the colors together. Also new is a hand-woven stainless steel fabric, a new technique for luxury goods borrowed from industrial uses, for the center console and door panniers. Each swath is made up of strands between 0.08 and 0.19 millimeters in diameter and takes three days to produce in a clean-room environment. Finally, the collection features stainless-steel tread plates engraved with the words, "Wraith Luminary Collection — One of Fifty-Five." Prices weren't announced, befitting the brand's aura of exclusivity, but the Wraith starts at a mere $320,000.

Rolls-Royce Dawn dons Aero Cowling for the Geneva Motor Show

Rolls-Royce will not be bringing the Cullinan SUV to the Geneva Motor Show, but it is instead displaying four special takes on its existing portfolio. The most striking of these is the Rolls-Royce Dawn Aero Cowling. The titular leather-lined cowling made of carbon fiber and aluminum covers the Dawn's rear seats, effectively giving it the appearance of a two-seater, and is fitted with storage compartments. Rolls-Royce claims it is very light, but then the 570-horsepower V12 convertible weighs more than 5,600 pounds, so even a heavier decking setup would really only strain the person lifting it. In addition to the Dawn, Rolls-Royce has brought three custom Phantoms. The most restrained one is called "The Gentleman's Tourer," which features a two-tone grey and silver bodywork and a dark interior. The concept harkens back to 1930s Continental Saloons. The second one, a long-wheelbase Phantom, is called "The Whispered Muse," and it has the Dashboard Gallery option, featuring a silk motif. Rose Gold appears throughout the vehicle, including the Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament — the first one finished in Rose Gold. The last Phantom, also a long wheelbase, is called "A Moment in Time," and its blue paint is a newly created hue. The three cars show off the customization capabilities of Rolls-Royce's bespoke division, and reportedly almost every customer will special-order their Rolls-Royce. Related Video: Featured Gallery Rolls-Royce Dawn Aero Cowling: Geneva 2018 View 14 Photos Related Gallery Rolls-Royce Geneva 2018 View 10 Photos Image Credit: Live photos copyright 2018 Drew Phillips / Autoblog.com Geneva Motor Show Rolls-Royce Convertible Luxury rolls-royce phantom 2018 Geneva Motor Show rolls-royce dawn

Rolls-Royce Cullinan's Viewing Suite seats are its tailgate party trick

It's one thing to flip down the rear bench of a Chrysler Town & Country parked at a scenic spot, sit on the folded-down backrest and look at the sunset. It's another thing to park a Rolls-Royce Cullinan on a similarly scenic spot and utilize the, ahem, Rolls-Royce Viewing Suite. Deployed at a touch of a button, the Viewing Suite is formed by two rear-facing leather chairs that emerge from the Cullinan's trunk. As well as the chairs, a cocktail table is fitted on the "luxuriously comfortable viewing platform" that enables a Cullinan owner to "take in the world's most breath-taking vistas or view a sports event or even watch their children take part in their school sports day," as Rolls-Royce suggests. While not explicitly mentioned, it's probably also perfectly suitable for a tailgate party with a couple cold ones fetched from a cooler while a ballgame plays on a portable TV. But as Rolls-Royce says, "Wherever one ventures, the Rolls-Royce Cullinan Viewing Suite guarantees the best seat in the house." The Cullinan is likely to cast aside its camoflage come Geneva time next month. Recent spy shots have depicted the luxury SUV with suicide rear doors, a feature that most large SUVs do not have. Related Video: Featured Gallery Rolls-Royce Cullinan Viewing Platform Image Credit: Rolls-Royce Auto News Rolls-Royce SUV Luxury rolls-royce cullinan

Rolls-Royce confirms new luxury SUV name

Transcript: Rolls-Royce confirms name of new luxury SUV. Rolls-Royce officially acknowledges Cullinan as the name of its new “high-bodied vehicle.” The automaker is steering around the SUV moniker. The name Cullinan comes from the largest flawless diamond ever found. The Cullinan will share a platform with the Phantom. Meaning it will likely get a 6.75-liter twin-turbo V12 engine with an 8-speed automatic transmission. With a possible output of 563 horsepower and 664 pound feet of torque. The Cullinan looks nearly ready for production and we expect the wraps to come off in the next few months. With deliveries starting in 2019. Rolls-Royce Cullinan will be the official name of the luxury automakers SUV. The “high-bodied vehicle” is named after the Cullinan diamond, the largest flawless diamond ever found. We expect the official reveal of the Cullinan in the next few month. For more coverage head over to autoblog.com Rolls-Royce SUV Autoblog Minute Videos Original Video camouflage

Rolls-Royce says SUV will in fact be called Cullinan, releases photos

We have known the upcoming Rolls-Royce luxury SUV is called is called Cullinan for a while now, but it took until today for the manufacturer to officially acknowledge the name. Referring to the quite simply enormous Cullinan diamond, Rolls-Royce says the name befits the new "high-bodied vehicle," carefully steering around the SUV moniker. "The name Cullinan has been hiding in plain sight since we revealed it as the project name some years ago," says Rolls-Royce CEO Torsten Muller-Otvos. "It is the most fitting name for our extraordinary new product. Cullinan is a motor car of such clarity of purpose, such flawless quality and preciousness, and such presence that it recalibrates the scale and possibility of true luxury. Just like the Cullinan Diamond, the largest flawless diamond ever found, it emerges when it is perfect and exists above all others." This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. At the same time, Rolls-Royce also released new official photos of the Cullinan, though it is still wearing camouflage. One of the photos depicts a test mule climbing a muddy hill, a territory unclaimed by Rolls-Royces except for ones modified by privateer rally teams. The Cullinan, based on a new proprietary aluminum spaceframe, is expected to be unveiled by late summer 2018, with deliveries starting in 2019. The vehicle's introduction is planned to lift the brand's yearly sales to 5,000 units per year, as they fell to 3,362 in 2017. View 5 Photos Related Video: Image Credit: Rolls-Royce Motorcars Rolls-Royce SUV Luxury rolls-royce cullinan

Rolls-Royce to show new Cullinan SUV in 'closed-room' events

Rolls-Royce plans a series of closed-room events starting this summer to show off its upcoming ultra-luxury SUV to potential buyers ahead of its expected unveiling in late summer. Codenamed the Cullinan and described by the company as an "all-terrain, high-sided vehicle," the SUV is Rolls-Royce's answer to ultra-luxury competitors like the Bentley Bentayga and Lamborghini's new Urus. It's expected to nudge the brand's vehicle sales past 5,000 a year after sales in 2017 fell 16 percent to 3,362, Automotive News reports. Engineers are now finalizing the handling of the vehicle on Germany's Nurburgring track. The Cullinan bears the luxury brand's signature long hood, vertical-slatted grille and upright, block-like fascia. It will be built on the same aluminum platform as the Phantom and is also likely to share the 6.75-liter twin-turbo V12 that makes 563 horsepower and and eight-speed automatic transmission, only in all-wheel-drive. Sales are expected to start near the end of the year with deliveries beginning in 2019.Related Video: