Range Rover is going limited edition for its 50th birthday and we all want a ride

Here's everything you need to know about the Range Rover Fifty...

Words by Erin Baker, Editorial Director at Auto-Trader

Range Rover, the original Chelsea tractor, celebrates its 50th birthday this year. The famous 4x4 has spawned a whole range since it first appeared: below it, in descending order, sit the Range Rover Sport, Range Rover Velar and Range Rover Evoque. The family forms the luxury arm of Land Rover, which also makes the Discovery, Discovery Sport and Defender.

To celebrate half a decade in existence, there’s a new “Range Rover 50” limited edition model on sale. It’s limited to 1,970 examples, reflecting the 1970 birth date of the Range Rover.

How things have changed since 1970. When the Range Rover was first launched, it came as a two-door SUV, in mustard yellow, with a vinyl interior that could be washed out and wiped clean. Practicality, not luxury, was its byword. Such was its unique utilitarian style that it was displayed in the Louvre museum in Paris as an “exemplary work of industrial design”.

These days, you’re more likely to find Range Rovers decked out in impeccably clean pale leathers and woods, with sound deadening and either a V8 supercharged petrol engine, diesel or a plug-in hybrid powertrain, plus the option of a long-wheelbase for a true limousine experience for stressed-out executives.

The new range Rover Fifty edition is available in very small numbers in three special heritage colours from Land Rover’s bespoke department: Tuscan Blue, Bahama Gold and Davos White.

The Range Rover Fifty will cost you over £100,000, but may well turn out to be a collector’s item.