Rare Range Rover rival crops up on sale in Switzerland

A 43-year-old, Switzerland-made three-door SUV named Monteverdi Safari is looking for a new owner with 118,000 km (73,300 miles) under its belt and an asking price of 79,900 Swiss Francs ($87,000 USD).

The company was founded by Peter Monteverdi, who originally imported Bentley, BMW and Ferrari luxury vehicles into his home country and later decided to try his hand at production as well. The company started with making coachbuilt GT cars based on Italian body designs and Chrysler powertrains. Six decades ago, it also created the country’s first Formula One racecar, although it had little success on the track.

The Safari model depicted here was marketed towards people living in mountain areas, where four driven wheels were a major advantage. It used an International Harvester Scout and sported a body designed by Fissore, a coachbuilder and long-standing partner of Monteverdi based in Turin, Italy.

Another selling point was the powertrain. The power and displacement were both greater than those of that era’s Range Rover model. The company used a variety of engines maxing out at 7.2 liters and eight cylinders. It remains unclear what this specific example has under the hood, but the seller claims it makes 165 metric horsepower (163 hp / 121 kW), which corresponds to the 5.7-liter International Harvester V8.