When Rolls-Royce first floated the idea of an SUV model in 2013, industry observers accepted it with a sigh of inevitability while brand purists flinched and promptly spilled Grey Poupon on their tuxedos. The Anglo-Germanic luxury automaker's SUV experiment doesn't seem so heretical today, helped in no small part by the fact that Bentley sneaked into the SUV party first and was joined around the same time by Maserati, Lamborghini and Alfa Romeo. Aston Martin will follow in just a couple of years, and from the looks of it, Ferrari will too.

In fact, the Cullinan has proved to be so popular that Rolls-Royce, which officially shunned the term SUV shortly until the Cullinan's debut, can barely keep up with the demand, Automotive News reports.

The marque's state of the art Goodwood, U.K., factory is running at 100 percent capacity while the order bank is full through July 2019 -- Goodwood has even hired 200 employees to keep up, Automotive News says. And that's for an SUV that starts at $325,000 and whose option book can "fit" the price equivalent of several other SUVs -- the one we drove back in October was optioned up to $380,000 and most will be about $450,000 out the door. That's $125,000 in options.

Half of Cullinan buyers are new to the brand, Martin Fritsches, CEO of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Americas told Automotive News.

"I would like to have a little bit more supply," Fritsches added. "And I don't get it because we are running on 100 percent of production capacity, increasing the production capacity throughout the weeks and months, but still not being able to catch up to demand."

Is this a temporary rush for a model that has just launched a few months ago, or a longer-term trend for all luxury brands?

Rolls-Royce fully expected the Cullinan to become the brand's best-selling model, a mantle held by the Dawn convertible until the Cullinan's debut. This means the company knew it would have a hit on its hands long before the first example rolled out of the gates at Goodwood, back when the economy was a little less receptive to $450,000 SUVs. Now, in 2019, the question may very well be: Can Rolls-Royce keep up with the demand?

But the marque is still shy about becoming a bigger automaker; Rolls-Royce sold 4,107 vehicles globally in 2018 and is not in a rush to double the output of any given model in a quest for profit. Just about all cars are made to order, with the exception of some demo models that the company keeps around, but the fact that each car is bespoke and takes several months to complete means that Rolls-Royce cannot rush through orders or churn out Cullinans made to some sort of basic trim level.

The automaker has said on a number of occasions that it is not chasing volume -- doing so would diminish the exclusivity of its cars -- but a volume model like the Cullinan, which Rolls-Royce did not even want to call an SUV until the day of its debut, may make the marque a little more relatable if not more affordable. In effect, the Cullinan will do for Rolls-Royce what the 2003-generation Continental GT did for Bentley: Serve as the brand's calling card through sheer presence, even if that presence will be in front of posh hotels and restaurants. This means that, in time, the Phantom will take a backseat role, pun intended.