Ever since Rolls-Royce announced that the Bentley Bentayga won’t be alone in the upper luxury echelons of challenging less than perfect roads, the world has been wondering what an SUV with the Spirit of Ecstasy on the hood would look like. As most people who know a bit about the ‘Double R’ brand would expect, their Cullinan project won’t be conventional by any means and the company just confirmed that their ‘SUV’ won’t actually be an ‘SUV’.
According to Motoring, talking to Andrew Boyle, the Rolls-Royce global production communications manager about what project Cullinan will be in the end, he said that it won’t be a traditional SUV but instead a ‘high-sided vehicle’. What that means could be everyone’s guess and, to be frank, most Rolls-Royce cars already fit that description.
“Project Cullinan? We call it a high-sided vehicle. SUV is not necessarily the right thing to call it because it’s not necessarily sports, it’s not necessarily utility,” said Boyle trying to shine some light into the matter. “A number of other brands are entering into this area as well, with their own interpretations of what a luxury SUV should be. You’ll have to wait to see what we decide it should be, but I think you’ll find that it’ll be a different interpretation to what’s available today,” he added.
Well, that’s exactly what we expected, to be honest. Ever since Rolls-Royce confirmed the Cullinan project, they said that it won’t have an SUV-like shape because Rolls-Royce doesn’t play by the same rules as the rest of the industry. Instead, the Goodwood-based firm said that they will create a luxurious car that will be able to cover all sorts of terrain. And yes, that doesn’t imply any ‘Sporty’ or ‘Utility’ character as mandatory.
The new model is being developed as we speak and will have its own chassis that will most likely be shared with the upcoming Phantom model. It will be as light as possible even though customers of Rolls-Royce vehicles don’t really care about such trivial things, and could also offer support for electrification, at least in hybrid guise.
