Rolls-Royce gave the world its first official look at the vehicle they are calling ‘Project Cullinan’. For those of you who don’t know much about famous diamonds, the Cullinan was a gem quality diamond found in 1905 that weighed over 3,100 carats. Presented to King Edward VII of England, the Cullinan diamond was eventually cut into nine different stones, of which Queen Elizabeth owns 7. The biggest two were placed into the heads of two scepters, where they have stayed since. Now of course this is just the name of the project for the new SUV, but what better company than Rolls-Royce to name their project after one of the world’s largest diamonds.
Now onto the SUV itself. We don’t know a whole lot about the vehicle other that what we get from these photos. The car essentially looks like a lifted, SUV version of all their other cars. It has the quintessential flat nose and long hood of all their current models. Even the headlights and grille fit in well with the company’s current design language. It seems Rolls-Royce have taken a page out of an aerodynamics book from about the time that the Cullinan diamond was discovered, cause this beast is tall and flat. Definitely don’t expect the most impressive fuel economy figures.
Project Cullinan differs from its fellow Rolls once you get past the front doors. The car has a full SUV body, presumably with loads of luxurious features and space for your passengers. From the looks of things, there is actually a decent amount of ground clearance, and assuming this car has air suspension, it may do pretty well off road.
This SUV is still very early in its development process. Rolls-Royce say that they are taking the Cullinan Project to the Arctic Circle for some severe winter testing sometime in January, and later in the year, to the Middle-East for hot weather testing. We don’t have a release date for this SUV yet, but we can assume that it will show up sometime in the next two or three years. Price is anyone’s guess, but we think a fair estimate would be well north of $250,000.
While we wait for more news on Project Cullinan, why not check out the vehicle that will likely be the Rolls’ biggest competitor, the Bentley Bentayga:
