Bob Lutz' Ex-Swiss Army Steyr-Puch Pinzgauer Was an Auto Exec's Muse

If your guess is something that reminds him of home, you’d be right on the money. This 1974 Steyer Pinzgauer might not fit in with the rest of Lutz’ collection, but it’s special to him in a way some others just aren’t.

The Pinzgauer line is the current and former workhorse utility vehicle of quite literally too many nations to list at once. The brainchild of Austrian engineer, who himself was the son of a man who worked for Tatra in Czechoslovakia, the Pinzgauer was Europe’s bread and butter Cold War army vehicle. Prototyped in 1969 and in production by 1971, fighting forces from Africa to the Americas and every part of Europe and Asia bought scores of 4x4s and 6x6s to traverse any terrain the Earth offers.

This particular Lutz musing is an early production 710M variant, a 4x4 with a removable soft top and, typically, seating for up to ten people. Other variants included a rear passenger compartment delete to create a flatbed truck, five-door hardtop seating five passengers, a standard three-door ambulance, and one of two unique ambulance configurations.

Unlike the American Humvee’s massive Detroit Diesel V8, the 2.5-liter air-cooled four-cylinder engine in these early Pinzgauers was almost downright practical. Not powerful, mind you, no more than 87 horsepower to the wheels by most metrics. Unlike most big off roaders in those days, a Pinzgauer's suspension is fully independent. It’s something a Swiss American auto executive like Bob Lutz would’ve no-doubt appreciated.

He probably enjoyed the barely synchronized five-speed gearbox and two-speed transfer case; the kind of machinery you almost need two hands on the stick to operate. But by the same token, you could fix most of what’s beneath the tiny front hatch in an early Pinzgauer. That’s a kind of dependability that crosses continents, bridges cultures, and thoroughly impresses wherever it goes.

This particular 710M is a revolving-door customer for Bring a Trailer. The vehicle was imported to the US sometime before 2005, when a shop called Precision Paint & Restoration in Hillsdale, Michigan, conducted a thorough restoration. There, it received a now canvas roof with flexible windows, a new swing-open tailgate, and a space for storage lockers beneath the bed.

Since then, it sold on BaT back in 2021, and because the website just grossed well north of $1 billion in sales, why not sell it a second time? Once in a while, the advertising really does pay for itself.