Monday, February 27, 2006

Laforza, Italian built Ford powered SUV, that wanted to take some of the Range Rover thunder in the 90's

The Laforza, which is Italian for "the Force", an italian luxury SUV powered by Ford. There's not a lot of information available on these, as they are no longer on the market and only produced and imported in low numbers. The AutoProphet spotted one the other day and posted on his blog about it. Then he suggested I post on it, since he knows that I'll post on anything even remotely Ford related.
For federalization Laforza chose the Ford 5.0 L motor from the Mustang. That meant that owners would have a reliable and easily serviced powertrain, and one less worry. As I recall, they came out around 1989 and were aimed squarely at Range Rover owners and others who wanted a more luxurious SUV. You have to remember that back then none of the Luxury brands made SUVs.
Range Rover was the SUV for Beverly Hills or Scarsdale, the one to be seen in. I mean you surely didn't want to have a Suburban or a Bronco in the driveway next to your Porsche, did you?
And this Lambo was just for the super rich, with it's V-12 and military type suspension. I understand, and I may be wrong, but most of these went to the Middle East. I've only ever seen one on the road here in New York.
So this wasn't such a bad idea, beating Acura, Lexus, Lincoln and Cadilac to the punch. But I think they only lasted a few years, until the mid 90's. If you do a web search, most of what you wil find are ads for used ones. I can't find much, but click the header for an enthusiast site, and below for a company(?) site.
http://www.automotive-technology.com/projects/laforza/

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

there's one up for bid on e=bay

Anychance you or the Auto prophet know anyone selling a 1989 Laforza. just kidding , but there really is one up for bid.



Bobzoom

NLPRacing said...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=4617374984&ssPageName=ADME:B:EF:US:1

Here it is.

Art

Big Ford Fan said...

Bob and Art, I knew about the auction, the AutoProphet had pointed it out, but thanks.

Honestly for the life of me, I couldn't figure out who would have bought one of these new. It's styling is very boring, and performance was not on par with the Range Rover, despite the power advantage of the Ford V8.

It's one of those shallow image vehicles.

Anonymous said...

i walk in my neighborhood and see one of these. I could never remember the name after I'd get home. Tonite I tried to research it b ut couldn't thingk of the name; finally drove over to the car, read the name and came home and started googling it. Not much was found. The one I see is in San Clemente and looks pretty clean. I am intrigued, for some reason.... will keep looking...