You can now count on one hand the number of carmakers that don’t have an SUV (or crossover/high-sided hatchback/whatever the hell we’re calling those): Aston Martin (though they’re making one apparently soon), McLaren, Bugatti, ergh…ok that’s about it.
Among mainstream or volume brands, everyone’s made one, including Chrysler’s ill-fated Aspen, which was a Dodge Durango for drug dealers. BMW had just one, now it has…seven. Jaguar has two.
There’s certain car companies that you’d never have guessed would build an off-road vehicle, like Bentley, or its even more genteel yet estranged sibling, Rolls-Royce. After all – if you want a ridiculously expensive, questionably-reliable British off-road vehicle that looks equally as good at the hunting lodge as it does at Harrod’s, you’d buy a Range Rover.
Few remember that Bentley actually dipped its toe in the SUV pond with the Bentley Dominator – a special build for the Sultan of Brunei that looks like something you’d buy an extraordinarily wealthy toddler.
The new Bentley Bentayga, available to people who don’t control an island principality, has been selling like hotcakes – so much so that the company has had to drastically (for Bentley) increase production numbers. For the first time ever, Bentley has sold over 10,000 cars globally. All this for what appears to be an Audi Q7 with lots of leather and chrome.
In light of that success, it was a matter of time before you’d see an enormous silver emblem atop a vehicle at eye-level. Today, Rolls-Royce admitted to the worst-kept secret in the industry: they’re developing an SUV, and they’re calling it the Cullinan.
Yes, after the biggest diamond in the world.
Just look at this thing. It’s massive. It’s a Range Rover for people who have a title.
Of course, we should’ve seen this coming. After their split from Bentley, Rolls-Royce developed a smaller and less-expensive vehicle: the Ghost. It’s been a sales success as well, spawning an entirely new model line despite a pricetag that starts around $350k.
It remains to be seen what it’ll look like under the veil, but thank whatever deity that we live in a timeline where we can go mudding in a Rolls-Royce.