CompleteCar

Nurse, the screens!

Nurse, the screens!
New Startech Range Rover makes us physically sick.

Sorry, but there's a bucket outside we've got to be sick into. Before the gorge hits the back of our tonsils though, there's just time to tell you that this is the Startech Pickup, a Range Rover-based flat-bed made by a subsidiary of Mercedes-tuner Brabus.

About as far removed from the concepts of good taste and aesthetic pleasure as it's possible to get, this has clearly been designed for the kind of oligarch who buys the Mona Lisa and then then has a painter add in bigger boobs. And a pierced nose. And some guns. Yes, it really is a current Range Rover under that horrid wide-boy bodykit, and atop those 23-inch rap-star wheels.

The engine is the Range Rover's standard 5.0-litre supercharged V8 but Startech has found an extra 16hp thanks to a sports exhaust system, taking the total to 526hp and a limited top speed of 250km/h. The air suspension is carried over too, but has been modified to allow an extra 30mm drop when driving on-road.

And then there's the pickup bed, plastic lined and which presumably allows you to tax it as a commercial.

Oh god, here come the pukes...

BLLLLLLLAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

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Published on April 20, 2015