Before The Urus, Levante And Stelvio, There Was LaForza

In the market for a luxury SUV with a bit of Latin flair? Italy has plenty of fresh metal to offer, between the Alfa Romeo Stelvio, Maserati Levante, and Lamborghini Urus. But they weren’t the first.

The original “Rambo Lambo” wasn’t either. Just before Lamborghini started producing the LM002, an independent manufacturer called Rayton-Fissore began crafting the Range Rover rival you see here.

Marketed in Europe as the Magnum and in the United States under the name LaForza, Italy’s first real luxury sport-ute was based on an Iveco chassis that Fiat’s truck division had (not unlike the aforementioned LM002) originally designed for military applications. An offshoot of a longstanding Italian coachbuilder, Rayton-Fissore gave it bodywork vaguely reminiscent of the original Range Rover, and an interior that surely seemed at least as luxurious (for its time), with creamy Italian leather and a curved wood dashboard.

While the Magnum employed a variety of gasoline and diesel engines, the US-spec LaForza used a nice, big 5.0-liter V8 sourced from Ford along with a four-speed automatic overdrive transmission. Later versions offered even larger engines, including a 5.8-liter version of the same unit, a 6.0-liter V8 from GM, and even some supercharged versions. There was one said to have been built with an even bigger 7.5-liter Ford V8. But this was one of the first made for the US market back in 1989, with Dearborn’s tried-and-true, fuel-injected 5.0-liter engine that has surely proven more reliable than the ’80s Italian assembly, to the rocky conditions for which the vehicle was designed.

Intrigued? Then we have good news for you because this example is up for grabs. And it won’t cost you as much as an LM002 – or an Urus, Levante, or Stelvio for that matter. Heck, it won’t even cost you as much as a bare-bones new Fiat 500. RM Sotheby‘s will auction off this unusual Italian creation come this spring in Indiana, where it expects it to sell for somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000-$15,000.

By way of comparison, the same auctioneer has a pristine LM002 on the docket for Amelia Island in March with less than 790 miles on the clock and a pre-sale estimate in the $200-250k range.