What It’s Like to Take the World’s Most Expensive 4x4s Off-Road: Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston-Martin, Bentley, and Rolls-Royce

Almost by definition, a career in automotive journalism leads to some fairly incredible experiences. Recent highlights include pre-running the Baja 1000, visiting the Dakar Rally and then getting to drive one of the winning racecars, stoically struggling through a Navy SEAL’s snow survival school, and taking a Ford Bronco Raptor out on the King of the Hammers racecourse.

But some of the fun factor borders on more egregious absurdity, too. Somehow, I’ve tested a Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato at over 100 mph in the dirt, jumped it, and survived. I can also claim to have completed a superfecta of sorts that only perhaps a handful of other people on the planet have: I’ve taken every “Super SUV” on the market, some of the world’s most expensive 4x4s, off-road in one capacity or another.

From rallycrossing a Lamborghini Urus, mudding in an Aston Martin DBX707, two-wheel teetering a Bentley Bentayga, snow sliding in a Rolls-Royce Cullinan, and all the way to spraying gravel in a Ferrari Purosangue.

Nobody in their right mind should ever do any of these things to fabulous, luxury 4x4s that cost well into six figures. And yet, I lived to tell the tale — and so did all the vehicles, I’m happy to report.

Lamborghini Urus

Lamborghini loaned me the first Super SUV that I ever drove back in 2022. And it’s fitting since Lambo arguably invented the high-performance SUV with the LM 002 “Rambo Lambo” back in the 1980s. (Just don’t ask about my friend’s Cummins-swapped LM 002; it’s a work in progress.) I took that first Urus loaner absolutely ready to spew forth judgment and instead came away duly impressed.

At that point, I didn’t know that Lamborghini’s CTO, Rouven Mohr, is a rally racing fanatic and even owns a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo. So he always bakes a certain amount of slidey-sideways fun into any Lambo, which resulted in the spectacular Sterrato as an absolutely absurd purpose-built off-roading supercar. 

Mohr also helped to push for a rallycross experience for the global launch of the Lamborghini Urus Performante variant, which I attended at Autodromo di Vallelunga in the hills north of Rome. In fairness, the program mainly included tarmac driving at Vallelunga, but I just wanted to keep lapping the rallycross portion of the day.

The Performante gets steel springs instead of air suspension, which sounds counterintuitive, but I believe it actually smoothed out some of the rougher sections. Swinging the big SUV’s tail through turns, stomping on the gas, and cranking into full drifty oversteer — in a car that easily costs north of $300,000 — simply brought out all my worst childhood instincts.

A Lamborghini With Rally Mode?

The Performante’s new “Rally” drive mode helped, allowing for additional yaw angle without cutting power. I found a clean rhythm soon enough, after seesawing my way through the first few laps. Eventually, I trusted the front wheels to help pull me through, and my hands settled down.

All the while, I kept praying not to hear the worst noise possible: a pebble potentially getting caught in the brake caliper and scoring a deep gouge in the massive carbon-ceramic brake rotors.

Luckily, the worst never happened, and I enjoyed an afternoon slinging around 657 horses worth of twin-turbo V8 Super SUV. Later, I’d recreate that ecstasy in the Sterrato, then also at an ice drifting class Lamborghini holds every year north of Montreal, Canada.

There, studded tires took the Urus ridiculousness to all new levels, proving once again how well Lamborghini combines the daily driveability of an SUV with the sheer stupidity of supercar performance.

Aston Martin DBX707

Second on the list, and also the second Super SUV that I ever drove, comes Aston Martin’s DBX707. But actually, when I first drove the DBX, I came away disappointed. Sure, the design looks spectacular, and at the time, it was the most powerful SUV in the world. But the driving dynamics lacked a certain flair.

So I wound up concluding that this Aston rode nearer to minivan than supercar. Plus, terrible interior ergonomics ruined the rest of the experience.

Then, for 2025, Aston Martin actually listened to the reviews and revamped the DBX with a massive makeover. The 707 now stands as the only model in the lineup, with revisions to the steering, suspension, and transmission tuning that entirely transform the handling. Plus, the interior now gets a legitimate touchscreen and beautiful buttons, plus Apple CarPlay — awesome!

Even still, I almost laughed out loud when an invitation arrived offering a chance to drive a DBX707 off-road in Scotland. Never did the thought of saying no cross my mind, of course. But I guessed that a totally tame, perfectly manicured lawn bowling field awaited me. Instead, Aston took me on the gnarliest day of off-roading I’ve done in any of these Super SUVs.

Axle-Deep Mud With 22-Inch Wheels!

All on 22-inch wheels, no less! On a rural estate, not quite in the highlands but chock-full of rocks the size of softballs, mud pits much more than axle deep, and some hair-raising descents … with, of course, a guy in full tartan supervising. But, throughout, the DBX707 performed far better than expected.

Allowing a certain amount of wheel slip after the coarse surfaces started spraying around. In the mud, even performance-oriented all-season tires found some grip as I charged through without lifting. 

Air suspension, in this case, let me lift up as high as possible to save some of the carbon fiber from taking too much of a beating. And yet, I never felt too much of the old pucker that hinted a vehicle might imminently give up and break down.

A bit more high-speed stuff, à la Lambo, would have been nice, but this demonstration of the DBX707’s prowess — and Aston’s confidence in the SUV’s abilities — still sticks with me to this day.

Bentley Bentayga

In contrast, my time off the asphalt in a Bentley Bentayga corralled me in a much more controlled environment. Bentley has a partnership with The Preserve, a shooting sports club in Rhode Island where clients can try one of the world’s most expensive 4x4s off-road to get around the property. There, on a purpose-built course designed to fit the SUV, I found the Bentayga’s true demeanor a bit harder to judge.

On one hand, the SUV did great, holding solid lean angles on berms, crawling steadily over mossy logs, and managing to scrape over elephant tracks showing off front and rear axle articulation. Or at least, some articulation, since I regularly lifted two diagonally opposing wheels into the air at a time. That sensation hits differently in something this expensive, let me admit.

The course aimed to fulfill a different goal than Lamborghini achieved with the Urus or Aston had with the DBX. Instead, I most felt the Volkswagen AG influence, as the Bentayga’s slow and steady pace won the race. Call it a softer Cayenne, since Porsche went stiff and fast with the flagship SUV in its recent generations.

Bentayga’s suspension instead allows more compliance, more droop, greater compression, and all around more comfort while off the beaten path. I’d be very curious to push it a little harder, especially on some real tires — something that applies universally to all these SUVs, actually.

Rolls-Royce Cullinan

Tire choice came up most critically for the Rolls-Royce Cullinan, though. First, I must admit that I only took the Cullinan a bit off the asphalt. But I did so in seriously snowy conditions, well below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, on a brutal winter weekend in northern Wyoming. There, even rugged Wyoming cowboys pulled out iPhones to film me drifting across frozen intersections, playing slip-and-slide in a half-million-dollar eggplant purple Roly-Poly.

I had driven the Cullinan twice previously, and the first time definitely required an adjustment period. The throttle response seemed laggy, the boat-like steering requiring a ton of input to actually, you know, steer the car.

But that’s the whole point: to create the softest, smoothest ride ever for the big boss in the back seat — and it works. Rolls-Royce truly sits at a different level of unbelievable engineering and thoughtful design, set well apart from the Bentayga that I figured the Cullinan might resemble beforehand.

Soft Responses Make For Ultra-Fun Snow Drives

Best of all, those attributes work well in the snow, where sudden driver inputs usually cause sharp vehicle movements, which leads to a loss of control. Instead, even on all-season tires in such frigid temps, the beefy Cullinan (which weighs over 6,000 pounds) never felt out of control.

Even when I punched the throttle to the floor to unleash every last of the 664 pound-feet from that gargantuan twin-turbo V12, the tires just wound up and the weight settled, and then we got moving with a patience that belied my eagerness. 

Donuts proved impossible without paddle shifters or the ability to fully switch off stability control. Such shenanigans shouldn’t figure into the life of many Rolls-Royce owners, though.

For me, would a Rolls-Royce ever serve as my choice of winter beater? Absolutely not, but then again, I will never be able to afford one anyway.

Ferrari Purosangue

I purposefully saved the most controversial of the world’s most expensive 4x4s off-road for last: Ferrari’s “not an SUV” Purosangue. Counter to the trend of other manufacturers that build these gobsmacking machines to boost sales volumes — a cash grab for family life, you might say — Ferrari went the opposite direction.

Hence why the Purosangue seems small on the inside, lacks an infotainment touchscreen in the modern era, eschews the use of turbos on its screaming 6.5L V12, and doesn’t even have sway bars for the suspension.

The goal, instead, is for this SUV to perform just like a supercar, only higher off the ground and with four seats. And honestly, the Purosangue manages exactly that quite well, even if I don’t see the point personally. Still, nothing could stop me from taking an unexpected detour to go for an unsupervised rip on a graded gravel road during a drive program in the rural countryside of Vermont.

The Prancing Horse Gets Dirty

I simply couldn’t resist a chance to experience how that V12 and gearbox respond with less grip, plus how the Multimatic suspension without sway bars behaves. Admittedly, I cringed while flooring it, a little scared of any rocks damaging especially the massive carbon-fiber rear splitter — again, my budget came to mind.

But the Purosangue’s body control and roll control impressed me the most. At first, the suspension wanted to squat a bit rearward. Then, all the bazillion sensors wizened up and added a bit more pressure to the rear Multimatics, which helped the front tires stop spinning and gain traction.

Launch control with a V12 always sounds great, but this artificial ability to let the revs spool up and then the grip catch up sounded even better. I watched a cloud of dust spray behind me, and then glanced down at the speedo in terror.

Trying not to brake much, I needed to take a soft lefthand bend at speed. Cornering, the Multimatics worked even better. Helping the tires skitter sideways without cutting into the communication I felt through the steering wheel. And when the time came to hammer the brakes, that beak-like front-end nose dove only a bit. Until I flipped a slightly slidey U-turn and headed back for asphalt before anyone caught me in the midst of such obviously criminal activities.

World’s Most Expensive 4x4s Off-Road: Dirty Thoughts

If some criminal held a gun to my head and forced me to pick a Super SUV, which one would I choose? Well, hands down, the Urus definitely gets the job done for me. The rationality of Volkswagen Group engineering, the known quantities of that twin-turbo V8, Rouven Mohr’s rally obsession — the Urus is definitely the best overall vehicle.

Because, being entirely frank, even if I owned one and could afford spare parts, I still wouldn’t take one of these SUVs off-road. I can save that for my Mitsubishi Montero or Pajero Evolution (rally racing obsessions have become a theme, clearly).

But the point isn’t to be rational here, clearly. These are some of the world’s most expensive 4x4s off-road. And to my taste, the DBX707’s updates for 2025 make it my choice. Aston surprised me enormously with that drive program. The exterior design absolutely nails svelte power, the interior now works wonders, and it’s much less common around Los Angeles than the almost-ubiquitous Urus.

The Cullinan comes in at a close second, though. Everything about what is actually Rolls-Royce’s smallest vehicle on sale today goes over the top: excessive luxury, plush performance, a ludicrously unaerodynamic design full of simultaneously rounded and boxy shapes. Save the sharp edge for something more seriously performance-focused, Rolls seems to be saying, even if that twin-turbo V12 can push some serious boost when asked.

I could make a case for the Purosangue and the Bentayga, too, but personal preference dictates such patently fabulous, fanciful imaginings. All of these Super SUVs truly are so good that they make choosing a favorite quite difficult — sort of like picking your favorite child, color, or movie. Luckily for me, this is one choice my bank account won’t likely ever allow me to make.