Rolls-Royce Has Staked Its Claim For The King Of SUVs

Behold the Rolls-Royce Cullinan, the first all-wheel drive Rolls ever.

- Dan Carney

“During several months of extremely arduous work, over country which was devoid entirely of roads and consisted mainly of desert sands and rockstrewn highlands, not a single Rolls-Royce armoured car was laid up for an hour, except as a result of the enemy’s fire.”

That was the 1922 report on a trio of Rolls-Royce armoured cars, which served as escorts to a tank convoy on a trip from Jerusalem to Baghdad and back, in case the very notion of Rolls-Royce building an all wheel drive SUV has your jaw on the floor.

While the Cullinan is the first Rolls 4x4, it is far from the brand’s first off-roader. Because, when Rolls was making its bones in the early 20th century, most of the world was still off-road.