Rolls-Royce names its SUV

Rolls-Royce has confirmed what we thought it already had: that its inaugural SUV, hitherto codenamed Project Cullinan, will be called the Cullinan.

No further details have been announced ahead of the global launch of what should be the world’s most luxurious SUV later this year, and these official ‘spy’ shots of a camouflaged prototype testing off-road and in the snow reveal no more than we saw in spy shots last year.

However, Rolls-Royce says its first “high-sided vehicle” (HSV, rather than Sport Utility Vehicle) will be a “priority market” model in Australia, where it nonetheless will vie with Lamborghini’s upcoming Urus to become the most expensive and extravagant SUV available.

“We're very pleased to confirm the name of our new car,” said Rolls-Royce Asia Pacific corporate communications manager Hal Serudin.

“The objective [is] to be Effortless, Everywhere. A world launch is due later in the year. Within the APAC region, Australasia is considered to be a priority market for Rolls-Royce.”

Announced in The Financial Times in 2015, Rolls-Royce says the mould-breaking Cullinan, which will ride on the same new aluminium spaceframe ‘Architecture of Luxury’ as the new Phantom sedan, will redefine luxury travel.

Available in Australia by mid-year priced at $950,000 for the short-wheelbase and $1.1m for the EWB, the Phantom will likely also donate its mammoth 419kW/900Nm 6.75-litre twin-turbo V12, this time driving all four wheels through an eight-speed auto.

“The name Cullinan has been hiding in plain sight since we revealed it as the project name some years ago,” said Rolls-Royce CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös.

“It is the most fitting name for our extraordinary new product. Cullinan is a motor car of such clarity of purpose, such flawless quality and preciousness, and such presence that it recalibrates the scale and possibility of true luxury.

“Just like the Cullinan Diamond, the largest flawless diamond ever found, it emerges when it is perfect and exists above all others.”

The high-riding Rolls-Royce wagon takes its name from a 3106-carat South African diamond found in 1905, the two largest pieces of which now reside in the British Imperial Crown and Sovereign’s Sceptre with Cross.

The Rolls-Royce chief drew similarities between the creation of the world’s largest diamond and the Cullinan’s extensive development program “from the searing deserts of Africa and the Middle East to the freezing snows of the Arctic Circle; from the grassy glens of the Scottish Highlands to the towering canyons of North America” and how “designers, engineers, craftspeople and artisans of the House of Rolls-Royce have shaped, tested and polished this unique motor car to eliminate any flaw”.

“We were inspired by the epic processes, over many millennia, which went into the creation of the Cullinan Diamond. The name embodies the many facets of our new motor car’s promise,” continued Müller-Ötvös.

“It speaks of endurance and absolute solidity in the face of the greatest pressures; it tells of rarity and preciousness and it alludes to the pioneering, adventurous spirit of The Hon Charles Rolls and the engineering innovation of Sir Henry Royce; and, of course, it speaks of absolute luxury, wherever you venture in the world.

“Quite simply, the name Cullinan is perfect and brilliant.”