Misfires and Monstrosities: three vehicular design disasters that show taste is in retreat

Taste. It’s a small word but it contains multitudes. Luxury brands were once entrusted to deliver quality without questioning cultural norms of taste and decency. No longer. This is a new era of ultra-conspicuous consumption, and there’ll always be someone seeking to push the envelope. We’ve collated the three most egregious examples of thoroughly OTT transportation design from 2024.

Wayne Enterprises Tumbler

Would you want to own a Batmobile? There’s nothing inherently wrong with the design of the Tumbler, which appeared throughout Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy between 2005 and 2012. It was brutishly suited to the director’s vision of the comic book character as a sociopathic loner, surrounded by equally sociopathic technology.

How does that translate into the real world? This fully functional 2.5 tonne machine is being built in an edition of 10, complete with simulated jet engine and official sanction from Warners Bros.

The Tumbler falls into the same taste trap as billionaires who name their boats after Bond films (or villains). There’s a whole website full of these Batman-esque fripperies, from pianos to furniture, all sold under the auspices of a company called - we kid you not - Bruce Wayne Enterprises.

There are more red flags here than at Lenin’s funeral - imagine Established & Sons reinvented for the second Trump epoch. As least people who build their own Batmobiles – usually something a bit more cartoonish and user-friendly like the Tim Burton-era machine – often have charitable use in mind.

Wayne Enterprises Tumbler, $2,990,000, BruceWayneX.com, @WayneEntX

Brabus Big Boy 1200

We have to assume that Brabus’s Big Boy 1200 has been named post-ironically. The tuning specialist’s first foray into motorhomes, this €1.2m mobile mancave offers 30 square metres of accommodation within a 12m-long coach-derived vehicle. With its monolithic, sepulchral appearance, the Big Boy comes across as a mobile operations centre for dirty deeds.

On board there’s a plethora of technology, including Starlink satellite (naturally), a PlayStation 5, vast television and extendable modules to cater for a large double bed. In short, everything you need for a Tech Bro road trip is available on board, although despite Brabus’s skill with tuning, the vehicle is limited to a maximum speed of 90 km/h (56 mph).

Brabus Big Boy 1200, Brabus.com, @Brabus

Rolls-Royce Cullinan by Mansory

We’ve noted how firms like Rolls-Royce are increasingly above the line when catering to more outlandish specification requests – one of the reasons for this new frankness is the existence of companies like Mansory. The German customisation outfit is big business and will overhaul almost any car with its signature fetish for exposed car fibre and a surfeit of spoilers.

As purveyors of OTT chariots to sporting stars and feckless minor royals, Mansory is letloose on the world’s supercars, hypercars and other luxury modes of transport. Seemingly of the belief that manufacturers’ billion-dollar design and development programmes can always be taken several steps further, Mansory is both hugely popular and industry-wide shorthand for bad taste.

The Rolls-Royce Cullinan by Mansory takes the British company's revised SUV and, well, wrecks it, with visual enhancements that row back Rolls’ attempts to soften the big 4x4’s presence and then double down on aggression, dysfunction, impracticality and sheer ugliness. For this, you can expect to pay at least double the Cullinan’s starting price of around £300,000.

The Rolls-Royce Cullinan by Mansory, price on application, Mansory.com, @Mansory