Rolls-Royce Built a Yacht-Inspired Cullinan and Only Four Exist

Rolls-Royce is no stranger to drawing on nautical themes for its cars. There’s the yacht-like teak decking it likes to incorporate into its convertibles, and there’s the ultra-limited Boat Tail, quite possibly the most expensive new car ever created. Plus, while it’s not exactly sailing, there’s all those possibly apocryphal tales of old Silver Shadows ending up in swimming pools, something Rolls itself tipped its hat to last year.

Now, there’s another connection between Rolls and boats, this time in the form of a very limited edition of the Cullinan SUV. It’s called the Cullinan Yachting, and it’s inspired by… yachting.

One of Four

Rolls-Royce says its connection to yachting goes back to its co-founder, Charles Rolls, whose family owned a steam yacht called the Santa Maria, upon which he briefly served as Third Engineer as a fresh-faced Cambridge graduate.

Seems as good a reason as any to launch a special edition of a car bearing his name, of which just four will be produced, each representing a cardinal point of a compass. Each one wears a unique exterior spec intended to evoke their assigned direction: the North car, finished in Light Blue, is supposed to bring to mind colder waters, and the Arabian Blue South is said to represent warmer seas. 

Meanwhile, the East, in Dark Silk Teal, is designed to suggest ‘the calm and mystery of dark seas’, and the West, painted in Sapphire Gunmetal, ‘a storm-lit ocean sky’. Each car gets a red and white ‘Twin Coachline’ stripe along the side along with a compass motif on the fenders – all painstakingly applied by hand, natch.

Cabin Fever

As it often does with its limited edition and bespoke commissions, Rolls has arguably poured even more effort into the interior. The dash and rear fold-down tables feature hand-applied artworks depicting a boat’s wake, while much of the wooden elements are made from open-pore teak, a material more often found on the decks of yachts than in cars.

The leather is finished in Arctic White with Navy Blue accents, with the seat inserts getting a bespoke pattern echoing nautical rope, and apparently hand-created by someone with ‘a personal connection’ to Britain’s Royal Navy. It is, of course, topped off with Rolls’ signature Starlight Headliner, in this case incorporated in a pattern inspired by Mediterranean wind maps. Whatever they are. It even incorporates subtle brightening and dimming elements to represent shifting air currents.

Anchors Away

There are no mechanical changes to speak of, meaning the Cullinan Yachting retains the base car’s 6.75-litre twin-turbo V12, developing a healthy 553 hp and 664 lb-ft of torque.

Naturally, Rolls doesn’t make mention of how much each one of these will cost, or whether they’re all already spoken for, but we’re fairly sure Rolls won’t have any issue selling all four Yachtings – most likely to people who own actual yachts.