Rolls-Royce’s ridiculously luxuriously, deliciously excessive SUV will officially be called the Rolls-Royce Cullinan, the automaker has confirmed today. Announced three years ago as Project Cullinan, it seems the uber-truck felt the name – inspired by the largest flawless diamond ever discovered, was particularly fitting, and so will stick for the showroom.
If, for some unknown reason, you’ve not been keeping up to date on your “massive diamonds through history” news, you might not have heard of the Cullinan Diamond. Unearthed back in 1905, in the Magaliesberg Mountains in South Africa, it was a hefty 3,106 carats in total before it was cut into nine different stones. Two of those ended up lodged inside the British Crown Jewels.
For Rolls-Royce, then, the message is that Cullinan will be a diamond in the rough (terrain). While an SUV might not be the first sort of vehicle you’d expect from the automaker, it promises to be just as refined – and excessive – as anything else from the company. Indeed, it’s based on a familiar platform.
Although it may be a part of BMW Group, the platform is completely unique to Rolls-Royce. Cullinan will be the second vehicle to make use of it, following the new Phantom, and is a good example of just how flexible the system is. After all, while a Phantom might be at home on city streets, it’s unlikely to roam to the desert, arctic tundra, or rolling canyons that the SUV has been tested in so far. After that, the same architecture will underpin the next Ghost, Wraith, and Dawn cars from Rolls-Royce, as well as any coachbuilt projects it undertakes for particularly wealthy clients.
