Range Rover Pickup Truck By Startech – WHY?

There are some car designs which should be physically built but never end up making it that far and then there are some design ideas that should be kept locked away but somehow find their way into the real world. The Range Rover pickup truck by Startech is the latter. The German tuning house picked the luxurious Range Rover as the test mule and is set to debut at the Shanghai Auto Show.

According to Startech, the Range Rover pickup truck is one of the world’s most exclusive trucks which is powered by a 5.0-liter supercharged V8 engine producing 519 horsepower allowing the vehicle to complete the 0 to 100km/h dash in only 5.3 seconds. The top speed is electronically limited to 155mph.

It would be interesting to see a video of the project. Besides being chopped up and converted into a pickup truck, the Range Rover also gets a widebody kit made up of carbon-fiber parts, 23-inch forged wheels, and a few other design changes.

As expected with these tuner projects, the interior gets its fair share of treatment with new upholstery using best of the best leathers, carbon-fiber touches, and usually a color-coordinated theme which in this case is black and red.

According to Startech, transforming the luxury SUV into a truck required them to redesign and manufacture over a 100 pieces of bodywork components from carbon-fiber, steel, and aluminum. And the good news for some is that the vehicle can now be registered as a commercial vehicle rather than a luxury SUV in many of the markets making it cheaper to import by avoiding high import duties/taxes. The same should also apply when insuring the vehicle.

The back bed is plastic-lined and offers a loading length of 43.3-inches while the tailgate is closed. With the tailgate opened, an additional 23.6-inches of cargo space is available.

Overall, it looks interesting to look at but I would never do such a thing to such a vehicle. What do you guys think?