1997 Land Rover Range Rover 4.6 HSE "Vitesse"

1997 Land Rover Range Rover 4.6 HSE 'Vitesse'

When I do one of these vehicle blog posts I use a random selection program to pick the car. It's interesting that this particular Range Rover was chosen tonight because I saw one of these in Minnesota a few weeks ago and they're pretty rare.

Land Rover actually produced exactly 100 of these yellow 'Vitesse' Special Edition Range Rovers in 1997 (they also made 100 red ones). There wasn't really that much to them other than the color and the matching interior piping. Back in the day anything odd would catch my eye (and still does), and a bright yellow SUV was certainly odd. 

I got a really good deal on the truck primarily, I assume, due to its color. It was in excellent shape though so I was thrilled. I had this thing for a while before eventually selling it to a guy in Detroit. 

I didn't have a thing for yellow stuff, but I did coincidentally own this yellow Ducati at the same time. This was probably in the late 90's or 2000, and I wasn't living in a super fancy neighborhood or anything but I had some interesting cars...and lots of them. The high school kid across the street asked me if I was a drug dealer. That was the exact moment I started looking for a nicer place (with a lot more garage space).

My girlfriend at the time loved this one and was quite upset when I sold it if I remember correctly. I kind of get the color being more of a feminine one for an SUV - I would maintain that yellow is fine for a sports car though. I didn't really mind driving it though, but there were better SUVs out there (and in my driveway for that matter). For functionality, the RR only rates about a 5. For practicality it gets a 4. But for style, this one gets a 9.5. It was cool and fun but just not necessary at the time.

There's no reason to buy one of these today. The older series are the collectible classics, and the newer ones are much better trucks for not much more money. I don't see this edition of Range Rovers ever becoming super-collectible and they're way too maintenance intensive to keep as a vehicle, but if you were going to get one, the Vitesse version is the one to have.