Last year in May, Rolls Royce’s design chief Giles Taylor, in an interview to Autocar magazine, had revealed that the British automaker’s design team was working on the SUV concept and assessing its viability. Rolls-Royce has now officially confirmed that It’s going to build an SUV, which will soon join its line-up of models. Synonymous with automotive luxury and a symbol of opulence, the quintessentially British brand has produced handcrafted luxury limos for the last 111 years; thus making it unthinkable for many that now a full size SUV will adorn the Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament.
Rolls-Royce Chairman Peter Schwarzenbauer and CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös, in an open letter, confirmed that the company would be producing a “high-bodied car, with an all-new aluminum architecture” designed to meet “customers’ highly mobile, contemporary lifestyle expectations.” Rolls-Royce doesn’t want you to think of its new model as an SUV and it’s not really a surprise that they are adamant on calling it a ‘high-bodied car that can cross any terrain’ rather than a SUV. It might diminish the luxe-factor. Torsten Muller-Otvos described the development as “another seminal moment in Rolls-Royce’s 111-year journey”. At present, the company makes three cars, the Phantom sedan, the smaller Ghost and the Wraith fastback. The decision by Rolls, which is a unit of BMW, comes as archrival Bentley, part of Volkswagen Group, is working on its own SUV, named Bentayga, which will go on sale in 2016.
[Via – Gizmag]
