Rolls-Royce is building an SUV.
In an announcement so gloriously over-written that it includes a *Lawrence of Arabia *reference, the luxury automaker promises its next new vehicle will be "high-bodied" and able to “cross any terrain” while meeting “customers’ highly mobile, contemporary lifestyle expectations.” Sounds to us like another way of saying SUV, even if Rolls insists the vehicle will be "effortless everywhere."
Not that Rolls would ever deign to call this thing, which is as yet unnamed, an SUV. This should come as no surprise when you remember what that term stands for: sport utility vehicle. These three words are anathema to everything Rolls Royce Motor Cars stands for. They are, after all, the people who chastised me when I called the gorgeous Wraith “sporty,” insisting that Rolls Royce automobiles are not sporty, but driver-oriented. There is nothing at all utilitarian about cars that start at $285,000. And a consumer good that rivals the size and opulence of Versailles cannot honestly be called a vehicle, even if it is on wheels.
Language issues aside, this move isn’t surprising. SUVs and crossovers are hugely popular, and the high end of the market is owned by Land Rover, whose range-topping Range Rover Autobiography Black can be had for less than a trifling $200,000. Bentley will introduce its first SUV, the unfortunately-named Bentayga, sometime this year. Rolls says “many discerning customers have urged” it to go the same route.
So it looks like Rolls will roll into the Geneva auto show next month with an SUV, even if it won't call it that. Until then, the company isn't saying anything more about the vehicle. We expect the brand to stick with its penchant for grandiose names like Phantom, Wraith, and Ghost, so maybe in the next few years, the world’s wealthy will happily shell out a few hundred grand for the Specter or Spirit, the high-bodied, terrain-crossing, effortless everywhere luxury coach they’ve been waiting for.
