Height, and a Rolls-Royce. The Cullinan is the car the house proposes when the road is not kind — a wedding venue up a ghat, a monsoon evening, a farmhouse past Karjat — and the occasion still asks for the Spirit of Ecstasy on the bonnet. It carries four in silence over roads that would unsettle a sedan, and its rear doors open on to a cabin that is a room.
Four in comfort — two in the rear in individual seats, and the house advises keeping it so. Your sarathi rides in front beside the car's chauffeur.
Three large cases and cabin bags under the tailgate.
A wedding beyond the city; a monsoon occasion; a family arrival that should be seen; a guest who prefers to sit high.
A current Cullinan, confirmed with photographs of the exact car before the deposit is taken; the rear cabin cooled; an umbrella at each door, because this is the Rolls-Royce the house would send in the rains.
By arrangement is the house's phrase for a car it does not keep on call and will not pretend to. Thirty days lets the house find the right one, see its registration, its insurance and the permission that lets it carry a guest that day, meet the chauffeur who comes with it, and send you photographs of the exact car before anything is held. A deposit holds the car; the balance is settled seventy-two hours before the journey, as set out in your written confirmation. Your sarathi rides with you; the car's own chauffeur drives.
Written for the occasion — the car, its chauffeur, your sarathi, fuel, tolls, parking and GST in one line — once the house has found the car and seen it. There is no rate card for a car like this, because the day and the car decide; what is written does not move. If thirty days is not what you have, say so: the house tells you plainly what is possible, and never sends something else and hopes.
Tell the house what you have in mind and when. Where the car cannot be found in time, the house says so at once and proposes the nearest thing it can stand behind — a Bentayga or a Range Rover where a Cullinan cannot be had — written at the Marque figure, with the same sarathi and the same care.
Ask the house for the CullinanChoose Marque, name the car, give the date. The house replies in writing.