Rolls Royce is going out of its conventional way of creating luxury large cars and limousines to make a practical model, the SUV Cullinan.
The car has been spotted testing on the roads and spy photos are available here giving us a glimpse of what to expect.
The auto brand has already released some official teaser images of the car giving a quick peek of its large body, 4×4 setup and some components. However, the spy photos released now are much more extensive and shows how the SUV would actually look. It revealed the suicide style rear doors, rear hinge, large square exhaust exits mounted close to the rear bumper and the floating front end. Despite all these reveals, the rear end of the Cullinan was mostly covered and revealed very little of its design quotient.
At the moment, Rolls Royce is testing the Cullinan in different roads and weather conditions. Once Christmas celebrations are done, the automobile company has planned to take the SUV to the arctic circle for some tough weather check. It is supposed to run efficiently in demanding cold conditions and will also be tested in the Middle Last later in 2017, where it’s extremely hot with temperature going more than 50 degree celcius at times.
Cullinan is a tentative name for the Rolls Royce SUV and it might be named differently when the production version is ready. The team has developed a new platform for this large SUV which will also be used to construct the future edition of the Phantom. An all-new suspension system is said to be a selling point for the car that brings the best of comfort associated with the brand in its other models. It will be powered by a four-wheel drive system.
The auto brand’s boss Torsten Muller Otvos confirmed that the team is looking forward to launch the car in the first half of 2018. There is a possibility that they might call the SUV Cullinan same as its codename but it is something yet to be confirmed at a later stage. He added that they are really happy with the progress the high-ride SUV has made so far and they were in the right track.
“Rolls Royce is the number one brand in the world and the Bentley SUV will definitely be in number two. We will bring the new car with the authentic Rolls Royce exquisiteness which will prove that our SUV is the best,” said Otvos. He took a direct dig at Bentley but the new Cullinan SUV is not going to be mass market but rather will be priced to cater to the elite crowd.