BMW owned Rolls Royce is preparing to take the wraps off it’s all new SUV but you’ll have to wait until 2018 to get your hands on one. For now you will have to contend with a heavily camouflaged and wrapped test vehicle. If the thought of a Rolls Royce SUV is too much too stomach for traditionalists then you have to think about the business case for a Rolls Royce SUV. It’s fairly simple, where there is customer demand then any company is duty bound to meet that demand. SUV’s are becoming more and more popular among new car buying consumers and that trend also applies to low volume ultra-luxury manufactures like Rolls Royce. Being owed by a German company means the British luxury brand will have done plenty of due diligence and market research to make a viable case for a Rolls Royce SUV. The prototype SUV Rolls Royce are developing is codenamed Project Cullinan and is scheduled to launch. The basic design has already been approved and the process of rigorous development is underway to meet that 2018 launch target. In a statement Rolls Royce also confirmed that the prototype vehicle will undergo winter and Arctic trials before heading to the Middle East to be tested under desert conditions. The Rolls Royce SUV will be based on a  all new aluminium chassis and feature a new all-wheel-drive system. But don’t believe the PR spin too much. BMW is also developing a large SUV to take on the Range Rover. There is no coincidence that the X7 is also currently in development, for a 2019 release. Rolls Royce will no doubt share the chassis with the X7 in addition to the AWD system. Rolls Royce models such as the Phantom and the Ghost are basically BMW’s underneath the leather and wood. Sharing between the brands allows for a better distribution of costs. Rolls Royce aims to join Volkswagen owned British ultra-luxury brand, Bentley, in offering a SUV to what is a limited but highly profitable market. Expect the Rolls Royce SUV to be priced in the £300k region when it finally becomes available to the buying market.