Rolls-Royce SUV confirmed

ROLLS-ROYCE will build an SUV. The company today confirmed that it will deliver an SUV to market currently being developed under the codename ‘Cullinan’ after the largest diamond ever found.

While not using the label ‘SUV’, a company statement confirmed the introduction of a high-bodied model’. It will not only be the first SUV Roller, but also the first to offer four-wheel drive. “Many of our discerning customers have urged us to develop this new car,” said the company statement, “and we have listened.”

The yet-to-be-named SUV will be produced using a new aluminium architecture, and while it’s been tipped to share its underpinnings with the forthcoming US-built BMW X7 SUV, Rolls-Royce insists that it is not a derivative of a BMW product. Still, that doesn’t mean it won’t share the basic foundations with a BMW, which would therefore spread the cost base across a higher volume model.

Power is expected to come from a V12 (of course) that would need to measure up against the forthcoming Bentley Bentayga and potential Mercedes-Maybach SUV. That means a healthy 450kW and 1000Nm is on the cards as a likely necessity for those ‘discerning customers’ who demanded the high-rise Roller.

The Rolls-Royce SUV is expected to add around 3000 sales on top of the company’s record haul of 4000 in 2014, and will require a larger workforce as it expands its facilities for the new model.

The Rolls-Royce SUV is expected to reach showrooms in 2018 or early 2019.