King Charles’s New Cullinan Wears the Queen Mother’s Plate

A Rolls-Royce Cullinan Series II wearing NLT 2 followed the royal carriages along the Mall in January 2026. King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain had given the SUV to King Charles III as a coronation gift, and its first public job was to carry an ambassador to St. James’s Palace.

The plate is older than the car, older than the reign, and older than the idea of a Rolls-Royce SUV. That is the part the horsepower figures do not explain.

On Coronation Day, Bahrain Sent a Cullinan

The palace gifts list for 2023 records, on 6 May 2023, a Cullinan Series II motor car from King Hamad, logged as a coronation gift. The same day, the same donor sent a decorative clock. The list, issued in May 2025, puts no price on either object.

From that coronation date to the Mall sighting is 32 months. The SUV was not on parade for the crowning. It was being changed for household work, then stored with the rest of the working fleet, then sent out behind horses when an ambassador needed a car and the carriages took the picture.

That first public run on the Mall was support duty. The King was at St. James’s Palace. The Cullinan trailed the carriages as backup and moved the visiting diplomat. Palace briefings around the list already said the car was for official occasions, not private trips.

THE GIFT CLOCK

1. 6 May 2023: The King’s gifts list records the Cullinan Series II and a decorative clock from King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa as coronation gifts.
2. 7 May 2024: Rolls-Royce Motor Cars unveils Cullinan Series II, a year and a day after the gift date on the list.
3. May 2025: The 2023 official gifts list is published, which is the first public paper trail for the SUV.
4. January 2026: The finished car appears on the Mall as carriage backup, on NLT 2, taking an ambassador to St. James’s Palace.

A six-figure British SUV from a Gulf monarch still looks to some like a sweetener. The Household’s own paper already blocks that reading, which is why the car sat out of sight for 32 months and then appeared only as a spare behind horses.

Why the Plate Reads NLT 2

Early write-ups of the Mall run shortened the mark to NL2. Later sightings, and the Queen Mother’s own files, give the full mark as NLT 2. It is a dateless British plate, the sort the Household has hung on working cars for decades.

She died in March 2002, aged 101. For half a century before that, NLT 2 was her No. 2 mark. In 1952 she inherited a Daimler DE 36 from King George VI and that car was given NLT 2. From 1970 she ran a line of Daimler DS420 limousines in claret and black, and the same number kept moving from chassis to chassis as each car was replaced.

THE NLT 2 LINE

State limousines on the biggest days run with no plates at all. Semi-state cars do show them. A Cullinan on NLT 2 is doing the Queen Mother’s old second-car job, the car that carried the suite, not the unplated No. 1 that takes the salute.

The Cullinan Is Held in Trust for the Nation

The 2026 Gift Policy of the Royal Household sorts objects into official, unofficial and personal. A car from a head of state on coronation day sits in the first pile. Official gifts from heads of state, food aside, are accessioned to the Royal Collection or otherwise held in trust for the Nation. Royal Collection Trust reviews them and has custodianship.

All Official Gifts given from a Head of State or as part of an Official Engagement, excluding perishables, are accessioned to the Royal Collection, or otherwise held in trust for the Nation.

Royal Household Gift Policy, 2026

That clause is why King Charles does not get a weekend Cullinan. The SUV is household property on official work. Bahrain gave Britain a British car, which is a neat diplomatic trick, and the Mews answered in the old way by putting it on the duty roster instead of the private garage.

The same policy asks donors, where they can, to offer a charitable gift instead of an object. The Household is not a showroom. A clock and an SUV still arrived on coronation day because heads of state are expected to bring something, and the paper already said where that something would live.

The Queen Mother Kept the Same Number Moving

British Daimler, not Mercedes-Benz, was the palace car for the first half of the twentieth century. Edward VII took his first 6 hp Daimler in June 1900, gave the firm a warrant after he became king, and turned part of the Royal Mews into a garage. Daimler built cars in Britain from 1896 until the name went dormant in 2010. Hooper often built the royal bodies.

After the war the household ordered two Daimler DE 36 Straight-Eight state landaulettes, delivered in 1947 as the No. 1 and No. 2 State Cars. One of that family of cars went to the Queen Mother in 1952 with NLT 2. In 1954 she bought another DE 36 and put NLT 6 on it. The NLT series was hers: NLT 1 sat on a DK400 and on her first DS420 in May 1970; NLT 7 sat on a Jaguar.

The DS420s kept the mark alive. The 1983 car already wore NLT2 in factory pictures. The 1990 car was registered as NLT2 on her later Daimlers while Jaguar Cars Ltd still owned the chassis and the Mews kept it in London. Arthur Barty, her chauffeur for a large part of his 27 years in the Mews, later visited that car in private hands. Her last DS420, bought in 1992, usually carried NLT 2 as well. She wanted that one back with the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust; it now sits at Gaydon as K123EYL.

When she died, the number did not die with her. Dateless plates in the family move. Queen Elizabeth II’s own MYT 1, MYT 2 and MYT 3 went onto Range Rovers. NLT 2 waited until a new official car needed a second-rank mark that still read as family.

The wider fleet followed a similar gift path. Rolls-Royce Phantoms took over from Daimler as the main State Cars in the 1950s and 1960s. In 2002 a pair of armoured Bentley State Limousines arrived as a Golden Jubilee gift and became the everyday No. 1 and No. 2. BMW bought the Rolls-Royce car brand in 1998 and builds the current cars at Goodwood. A foreign king sending a Goodwood SUV in 2023 fits that pattern more tightly than it looks: the Mews has been taking gifted cars and putting them on duty for a century.

An SUV That Follows the Carriages

The Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace still splits the motor fleet by job. State Cars do public and ceremonial work for the monarch and, at times, for visiting heads of state. There are currently five State Cars, two Bentleys and three Rolls-Royces. They carry no number plates. Semi-state cars do the less formal running and they do show plates: a pair of 2012 Jaguar XJ limousines and three 2022 Range Rovers. A 2015 Range Rover Hybrid is the standing review car, and it follows the State rule of no plates. Land Rovers, luggage brakes and minibuses fill in the rest.

HOW THE MEWS SPLITS THE CARS

• State Cars: Two Bentleys and three Rolls-Royces, claret below the beltline and Mason’s Black above, no plates, numbered one and two for the monarch on the biggest days.
• Semi-state cars: Two 2012 Jaguar XJs and three 2022 Range Rovers, plates on, used when the day is official but not a full state show.
• This Cullinan: An official gift on NLT 2, so it shows a plate, and its first outing was backup to the carriages rather than the unplated No. 1 slot.

Royal chauffeurs drive the lot, under the Head Chauffeur and the Crown Equerry. The monarch is driven by the Head, Deputy Head or Assistant Head Chauffeur. First chauffeurs take other members of the family. Second chauffeurs do general work and look after the cars. Nobody in that structure is handing the King the keys to a V12 SUV for a private run to Highgrove.

On State and semi-state cars a mount on the bonnet takes a mascot that changes with the occupant and the place. In England the monarch’s car wears St George and the Dragon, made for Elizabeth II by Edward Seago. A lion is used in Scotland. Britannia, once George V’s, still turns up. When the car is not on state business, the maker’s own mascot goes back on. Roof fittings take a shield and a flagstaff. None of that kit has been shown in official pictures of this Cullinan.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The donor: King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain, logged on 6 May 2023 with a clock as well as the car.
• The job: Official occasions only, first seen in January 2026 as carriage backup for an ambassador to St. James’s Palace.
• The plate: NLT 2, the Queen Mother’s long-running No. 2 mark, now on a plated official SUV.

WHAT’S UNCONFIRMED

• Armour and lamps: Spotting notes have claimed a roof crest, grille lamps and armour. The Household has not published a spec for those changes.
• Biofuel: Accounts of the gifts list said the V12 can run on petrol and biofuel. That has not been shown on the Mall car.

Horses still lead on the days that matter. Edward VII said as much in 1904, when he told the household that motor carriages should not take the family to court ceremonies at the Palace. The Cullinan’s first outing obeyed that old split: carriages in front, engine in reserve.

Series II Did Not Exist on the Gift Date

Rolls-Royce presented Cullinan Series II on 7 May 2024, a year and a day after the palace list says the gift was received. The original Cullinan arrived in 2018. Series II keeps the same 6.75-litre twin-turbo V12 and adds a new nose, an illuminated Pantheon grille, fresh daytime lamps, 23-inch wheels and a new digital cluster. In that announcement the marque called Cullinan the most requested Rolls-Royce in the range.

A list published in 2025 can use a 2024 name for a car that was still being specified in 2023. The Mall vehicle is a Series II. The gap matches a pledged coronation gift that was built, changed for Mews work, and only then put on the road. It does not match a car handed over, taxed and plated on the day of the crowning.

CULLINAN SERIES II, STANDARD CAR

The palace list is silent on value, so the Kelley Blue Book figure is the clean retail number for a standard Series II, not a Household valuation. The King is unlikely to need 563 hp on the Mall. The engine is there because that is the only engine Rolls-Royce puts in a Cullinan. Series II did not add a hybrid system.

In January 2026 the old number finally moved, on an SUV, behind horses, down the Mall.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is a Daimler DE 36?

The DE 36 was a British Daimler Straight-Eight chassis used for royal landaulettes after the war, with Hooper often building the bodies. Australia also ordered DE 36 cars for a planned 1949 tour; a surviving Hooper landaulette from that group later carried Queen Elizabeth II on the 1954 tour and is now in the National Museum of Australia. It is not a Mercedes-Benz.

Who Drives the Royal State Cars?

Royal chauffeurs based at the Royal Mews drive them, overseen by the Head Chauffeur and, above him, the Crown Equerry. The monarch is driven by the Head, Deputy Head or Assistant Head Chauffeur. First chauffeurs take other working members of the family, and second chauffeurs cover general runs and the daily care of the cars.

What Happens to a Gift From a Head of State?

Under the 2026 policy, official gifts from heads of state, except food, go into the Royal Collection or are held in trust, with Royal Collection Trust as custodian. The Household also asks people to consider a charitable gift instead of an object, and in 2022 it sent unsolicited Paddington toys to a children’s charity rather than keep them.

When Did a British King First Use a Car on Duty?

On 19 October 1904, Edward VII was driven to and from Woolwich Garrison in a 28-36 hp Daimler limousine, which the Household treats as the first official motor engagement. The same year he had already said electric broughams and motor carriages should not take the family to court or other state ceremonies at the Palace, so horses kept the biggest days.