The SUV madness has taken over the world, with people buying everything with a taller ride, everywhere you look. That prompted a lot of manufacturers which you wouldn’t have normally imagined as SUV makers to change their ways. One of those manufacturers is Bentley but the bigger shock must’ve been the announcement of the Lamborghini Urus. How you can go from the Aventador to an SUV is simply baffling to me. Rolls-Royce has joined in as well and their Project Cullinan is already raising brows.
Even though the name of the car hasn’t been announced yet and details are pretty scarce, the interest for what the double-R SUV will bring to the table is palpable. It will be quite a challenge to design the car in the first place, so that it holds true to the Goodwood values, not to mention the engineering behind it. And while some might imagine a car that looks like a Range Rover and can go places you never thought possible, officials are trying to tone down these expectations.
In a recent talk with Car Advice, Paul Harris, the Regional Director of the brand for the Asia Pacific region said that the car was created for the road most of all. “It’s a go-everywhere vehicle,” said Harris. “Where you’ve got a mixture of made roads, un-made roads, you need flexibility. And you need comfort and usability and I think when Cullinan comes on board, you will see a new level of go-everywhere, high-sided vehicle. It will have off-road capability but I would say it’s designed for on-road.”
As you can see, Rolls-Royce avoids using the term ‘SUV’ when referring to this car, as it would be too common. Instead, their product is a high-riding machine and that points to a design that will most likely resemble the Phantom but with a higher ground clearance. That said, the Phantom’s V12 and spaceframe lightweight platform could also be used to bring Project Cullinan to life and that’s good news all around.
