Rolls-Royce has unveiled the Black Badge Cullinan by Cyril Kongo, a five-unit bespoke series that turns the luxury SUV into a kind of private art gallery on wheels.
The collaboration brings together the Rolls-Royce Bespoke division and contemporary artist Cyril Kongo, known for his vibrant visual style, marked by intense colours, symbols, abstract shapes and urban references. The result is a Cullinan that, discreetly, does exactly the opposite of going unnoticed.
The five units were created as Private Commissions, meaning exclusive projects developed for specific clients of the brand. The curation involved Rolls-Royce Private Offices in New York, Seoul and Goodwood, in the United Kingdom.
Inside the model, Kongo brought his so-called “Kongoverse” to the interior surfaces of the Black Badge Cullinan. The interventions appear on the Starlight Headliner, picnic tables, dashboard, rear console, and hand-painted wood and leather finishes.
Rolls-Royce also debuted its first Gradient Coachline in this project, an exterior line with a gradient effect that matches the colours of the brake callipers and interior details. Because, apparently, even a painted line on the bodywork of a Rolls-Royce needs its own résumé.
Kongo’s signature motif also appears on the umbrellas integrated into the car, the illuminated treadplates, interior embroidery and as a hand-painted element on the bodywork. Each of the five vehicles follows the same artistic concept, but with a unique execution.
According to Domagoj Dukec, Director of Design at Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the project was born from conversations with collectors interested in contemporary art applied to highly personalised commissions. For the brand, the Black Badge Cullinan served as the ideal base to unite Kongo’s expressive universe with the craftsmanship of its designers, engineers and artisans.
Cyril Kongo said that, when he encountered the Black Badge Cullinan, he imagined a universe of its own for the vehicle, made up of fantasy, mathematical formulas, symbols, pyramids, atoms and imaginary planets. Rolls-Royce, as everyone knows, rarely deals in modest requests — and in this case decided to turn all of that into interior trim.
The Black Badge Cullinan already represents the boldest interpretation of the British brand’s SUV. With Kongo’s intervention, the model moves even further into the territory of collector’s pieces, where the car stops being merely a means of transport and becomes an object of art, status and extreme personalisation.
Source and images: Rolls-Royce. This content was created with the help of AI and reviewed by the editorial team.
