Motorola StarTAC 70 “Rainbow Edition”: The Ultra-Rare Multicolor Icon of the GSM Era

Born from Motorola’s brief but daring attempt to break into the youth market, the Rainbow Edition abandoned every established rule. Instead of corporate black, it exploded in a palette of red, green, blue and yellow molded plastics. This was not a repaint or a gimmick. These colors were factory produced, region specific, and offered only in small numbers through select operators such as MoviStar and Telefonica. The visual impact was radical, and at a time dominated by monochrome Nokia bricks, this phone looked like nothing else on Earth.

The Rainbow was a commercial anomaly, too bold for the mainstream and too ahead of its time for conservative users, and because of that, extremely few survived. Its scarcity has driven collectors into near obsessive authentication hunts, especially with the flood of counterfeits and repainted shells that appeared over the years. Genuine units, with original multi tone housings and correct operator branding, are considered trophy level acquisitions.

This device is BNIB and fully functional, preserved in a condition that is virtually unheard of for this variant. And even more extraordinary, there are two BNIB Rainbow StarTAC 70 units in the collection. Owning even one authentic Rainbow is already almost impossible. Having two boxed originals elevates the rarity to a level normally reserved for museum archives or private corporate vaults.

The original box, with its dramatic rainbow arc and cosmic blue background, was produced only for this version, reinforcing how intentionally Motorola treated this colorway. Everything about this edition was designed to break conventions and redefine what a mobile phone could look like.