Although Bentley was a bit faster than Rolls-Royce when joining the ultra-luxury super-SUV party with the Bentayga, the latter’s Cullinan model was a true automotive diamond in the rough, just as its name had predicted.
While their VW-owned rivals opted for their first-ever SUV to be named Bentayga as a portmanteau of Bentley and Taiga, a humongous forest, Rolls-Royce sought to stand out in the brewing ultra-luxury super-SUV crowd with a name that would make everyone proud, including diamond connoisseurs. As such, they named it Cullinan, inspired by the biggest gem-quality rough diamond ever found.
While it is not the largest in the world, due to Brazil’s ‘Sergio’ weighing in at 3,167 carats against the original Cullinan’s 3,106.75, this South Africa (Premier mine, now the Cullinan Diamond Mine after diamond lord Sir Thomas Cullinan) gem trumps most other such stones – like the third largest Sewelo from Botswana, which ‘only’ has 1,758 carats.
Anyway, the logic behind Rolls-Royce selecting Cullinan as the name of their SUVs is both easy to explain and quite normal – they wanted to make sure everyone knows their vehicle is possibly the largest diamond in the automotive world. Well, that is up for debate, of course, but at least we can easily say that – along with Lambo’s Urus – it has without a doubt won the customization and personalization aftermarket game’s crown jewels and throne gems.
But here is the thing – only ‘diamonds are forever,’ not SUVs and their established domination on the vehicle market. As such, the competition has not remained idle and while fresh attacks from the likes of Aston Martin’s DBX707 have been easily pared off, the same will not be said when the time comes for the Rolls-Royce Cullinan to fight the new coach-door Ferrari Purosangue foe. And while the latter is smaller, it is still a big threat to British domination.
So, what if Rolls-Royce was not settling for just the crown jewels (the Cullinan diamond was cut into various stones – of which the most famous ones reside with the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom) and wanted a direct competitor for the feisty 715-hp, V12-equipped Italian ultra-luxury crossover super-SUV? Well, that is an interesting thought, right? Coincidence, or not, this is something not possible in the real world, of course.
But across the infinite parallels of the imaginative realm of digital car content creators, nothing is forbidden. As such, we found a way to illustrate the potential Ferrari Purosangue contender from the Brits over at Rolls-Royce with help from the virtual artist better known as Theottle on social media, who has resorted to quirky CGI metamorphosis to expand Rolls-Royce’s CUV family. And it’s an odd one, quite indeed.
As such, the pixel master decided the best course of CGI action was to simply take the ‘backbones’ of the hideous or innovative (depending on your POV) BMW XM and marry them to the sleek yet split-headlight design of the Rolls-Royce Spectre EV to create a posh new crossover SUV. Oddly enough, though, the CGI expert did not opt for XM’s 738-hp Label Red plug-in hybrid powertrain but rather for a full EV treatment. Plus, he also found the perfect unofficial name for Cullinan’s smaller sibling – aka Sewelo, after the eponymous second-largest gem-quality diamond ever extracted.
