The story
In 1978 the four-wheel-drive world offered farm-grade workhorses and not much else, and Franco Sbarro wanted something that could climb a mountain and still feel like a private library inside. So he built it: a tall, square-shouldered wagon with heated, electrically adjusted Recaros, real wood across the dash, air conditioning and, according to the period brochure, a laser disc player. Hydraulic jacks lifted the body from 25 cm to 42 cm (9.8 to 16.5 inches) of ground clearance on command. The bits nobody noticed were borrowed: a Fiat 131 windshield, a Volkswagen Passat grille, Opel taillights.
There was no standard Windhound, because there was no standard anything. Buyers chose 3 doors or 5, manual or automatic, and an engine from Mercedes, BMW, Jeep or Fiat, while the chassis beneath could be Mercedes G, Jeep Cherokee Chief or Range Rover. The first one, built for a customer in Neuchâtel, was later entered in the 1980 Paris-Dakar and rolled its way out of the rally 3,500 km (about 2,175 miles) in. Sbarro bought the wreck back, rebuilt it and sent the exhaust and air intake up over the roof. A stretched cousin, the Windhawk, went falcon hunting for a king.
