NOS OUTLAND VPP3

Last year when randomly googling i found picture of beautiful rare NOS Outland frame. It was several years old ad, but i contacted the guy anyway. To my surprise frame was still in his garage! Slight inconvenience was that that garage was located in Cape Town. LOL. We went back and forth for about half a year till deal finally materialized. Shipping turned out to be way more expensive that i thought but luckilly, his best friend is a sport photographer and he went last week to cover Swiss Epic MTB race. Driving from Prague to Davos and back wasnt exactly cheap either but still better than Courier from South Africa it turns out.
Here it is, in its beauty. Some bubbling under the paint on the rear end, but otherwise never used, never built.
Outlands are rare in general and since their major part in influencing mtb suspension evolution gets more prominent, they are becoming more and more collectible. This particular one is even rarer though.
Its a VPP3 Cross Country specific model with smaller travel and smaller linkage that doesnt crosses the seat tube (like the most common VPP5)
Because of that, silhouette is much cleaner in this one. I really like it.
Smaller linkage is very cute in comparison to huge and brutal VPP5 models.
Im not sure if i have ever seen VPP3 on another picture apart from one catalogue page that can be seen on the internet.
There is not much info about the history of the brand on the net either.
I have old magazines from 95-96 that reviewed and covered the first models.. After that, there is a information gap. In that time, company changed its name, licenced the design to Mongoose and than closed around 2000. But its not really clear when exactly everything happened and why. Also its quite diffficult to date the models. No catalogs are easily available. I found that Outland Sports USA Inc was established in 1997. and 2000 was dissolution.
If you know more, please share..
Anyway, here are some pics and closeups.
Cheers
Jan

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That's cool, the shape kind of reminds me of the Specialized FSR ftom the early/mid 1990's, pretty clean looking for a full suspension frame.
What are your plans for it??

Wow! That is a superb find and a real piece of history.

One of the very few bikes on my want list. As they are so hard to find I'd quite happily settle for a used VPP3 or 5 let alone finding a NOS one. Looking forward to seeing you build this up.

Ed

Very cool!

I'm totally jealous! I have 2 early Whytes from 2004 which I thought were the first virtual pivot point frames. How wrong I was. The pivots on the Whyte are arranged differently but serve the same purpose. I love the engineered look of your frame at the rear.

Thanks everyone! Im in love wit it right now. This build has to be all NOS im afraid. Or at least nos looking, so i my building speed it will take me next 5-10 year lol. Guy i purchased it from was actually Outland sponsored rider. This frame was a spare one and was intended to be raced in Dual Slalom races. So im thinking about to honor this history and build it as a period correct Dual slalom bike.. I dont know yet. But i like the dual slalom route just because its not seen very often..

In terms of colors there is a yellow graphics and there is a red shock so i can math those with yellow or red judy. I quickly checked tones and 96 judy SL is a bit lighter tone than Logo. Red deluxe shock should be same as fork.
Im thinking a 98 Red/white JUDY DH could look great. Also White Bros SC90 could match nicely silver gray rear end..
But with Red Judy i think there would be enough colors alredy, that i could go with black components and it would be fine.. Black NOS components would be easier to find and could cut build time by several years
Wheels im not sure yet, but Spinergys are hot candidate for sure since they was in some mag reviews of that bike bitd..

Little Outland mention from the Mountain Biker 96 Interbike Expo Show coverage:

As it's a NOS frame you could build it any way you want, dual slalom style would be cool, but which build type would suit your riding plans best?
Spinergy wheels would look fantastic on the white frane though

I will definitely try how it will look with spinergys. I wanted to have then for some time and now there is proper reason. I dont think i will ride this bike though. Im just too weak to ride nos stuff

In the meantime i found this review from Mountain Biker i knew i had. I remembered it to be 96 but infact its from July 97. So this paint scheme and changed logo on my frame means its 98. So technically wrong forum. But its VPP3 with spinergys and it looks kickass.