Slotted above the Ghost ultra-luxury sedan, the Cullinan is the first-ever sport utility vehicle to bear the Rolls-Royce Spirit of Ecstasy. Some peeps describe it as blasphemy, although said folks ignore the fact that Rolls-Royce wouldn't have launched the Cullinan had there not been demand for SUVs.
As of December 2023, the Roller also happens to be one of two series-production SUVs with V12 muscle. It's obvious that Rolls-Royce doesn't target the same customers as Ferrari, and thanks to turbocharging, the V12 in the Cullinan is a completely different animal from the Purosangue's naturally-aspirated lump.
Revealed in May 2018 with a starting price of $325,000 (plus $2,750 for the destination charge and $2,600 for the gas guzzler tax), the Cullinan leveled up to Black Badge specification in November 2019. Since then, nothing else has changed about it.
Come 2024 for the 2025 model year, the Ghost-twinned Cullinan will receive a mid-cycle refresh comprising many visual updates, including a pair of ginormous exhaust finishers. The prototype in the photo gallery further sweetens the deal with black cladding that extends higher into the quarter panels in comparison to the pre-facelift specification.
Spied testing in Germany, said prototype sports quite a few stylistic revisions up front. Although Rolls-Royce camouflaged the area around the totemic radiator grille, the lower section of the front fascia is completely devoid of camouflage. Oversized vents/intakes join a nicely integrated adaptive cruise control sensor. Of course, R-R also worked its magic on the internals of the headlights, but only just.
Photo: Baldauf
Pictured on somewhat generic-looking wheels, the 2025 Rolls-Royce Cullinan is expected with little in the way of interior updates. Word has it that Rolls-Royce used the all-electric Spectre rather than the internal combustion-engined Phantom as inspiration for the Cullinan. Only time will tell, though…
The prototype before your eyes doesn't appear to feature any kind of hybrid assistance, which is quite intriguing because everyone and their dog is going down this route, including Ferrari (SF90 and 296) and Rolls-Royce parent company BMW (XM and all-new M5). The Cullinan's Architecture of Luxury is technically capable of ditching internal combustion for a pair of electric motors, for said platform also underpins the aforementioned Spectre coupe.
However, this generation of the Cullinan isn't going to receive a zero-emission powertrain due to the platform's limitations. More specifically, imagine what kind of range the Cullinan EV would offer as long as the Spectre is EPA-rated 291 miles (make that 468 kilometers) on a full charge of the battery.
With Rolls-Royce going fully electric after 2030 due to emission and fuel economy regulations, the British manufacturer remains committed to its twin-turbo V12 for a few more years. According to big kahuna Torsten Muller-Otvos, the V12 will be killed off after production of Series 2 vehicles (that'd be facelifts in Rolls-Royce vernacular) comes to a grinding halt.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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