Monteverdi Safari

The Monteverdi Safari is a Swiss luxury SUV first presented by Peter Monteverdi in 1976. It entered into production in 1977. Production came to an end in 1982, after production of the International Harvester Scout (upon which the Safari was based, and with which the Safari shared many parts) came to an end. There was also a lower-priced version called the Sahara, which retained the Scout's original bodywork with some modifications.

The 1977 domestic market price of CHF 39,000 was only CHF 5,000 higher than that of the less well-appointed Range Rover. There were relatively few luxury SUVs offered in Europe at this time, and while the Safari’s sales volumes were dwarfed by those of the Range Rover, they were high compared to the company’s other models targeted at the higher end of the Maserati/Ferrari class.

The body of the Safari was built by the Italian coachbuilder Fissore, with whom Monteverdi had a long standing relationship. Standard equipment was originally a Chrysler 5.2 litre V-8 engine delivering a claimed 152 bhp (113 kW) at only 4,000 rpm along with a useful 346 Nm of torque. This gave it a significant power and performance advantage over the 3.5 litre-engined Range Rover of the time. A 5.7 litre 165 bhp (123 kW) International Harvester V8 engine was also offered, and the manufacturers maintained that the drive train components were also engineered to be able to accommodate Chrysler’s 7.2 litre 305 bhp (227 kW) unit.