A Truly Luxurious Vintage Wagoneer IS Born

The Journey from America to Italy

In the mid-‘60s the economy in Italy was booming. The appetite for new extravagant vehicles prompted Italian coach builders to buy chassis and custom make coaches, usually design-inspired by American modernist design. This style, in turn, was inspired by the space race, which is why we see a triumph of curves, fins, missile-like ornaments and excessive chrome on cars from the era. These were the years when coach builders  Vignale, Michelotti, Viotti, Ghia, and a few others flourished with their extraordinary small series of Made in Italy jewels. These were not necessarily expensive cars. One example was the FIAT 1100 SUPERGIOIELLO, or the FIAT 600 VIOTTI, which cost roughly 50% more than the mass-produced model, but had that unique Americanized style!

The sole way to get brand-new Made in America cars back then was to pay the exorbitant tariffs that Italy imposed for those goods. Some people were lucky enough to have enough money and passion to actually do so. Among them, Commendator (or Sir) Mentasti, owner of the San Pellegrino water company, and a famous lover of “le cose belle” (the beautiful things).

It was 1967 when this exotic ‘San Pellegrino turquoise’ Jeep Kaiser Wagoneer arrived in Palermo, Sicily with the weekly ships coming from NY.  We can only imagine how the locals felt every time the ships arrived … how exhilarating it must have been to get a piece of America in southern Italy, where the biggest American military base was located (in Sigonella).

The car gets unloaded, clears customs, gets shipped by train to Milano, where Mr Mentasti registers it with license plate number MIxE49955 and finally, this now-vintage station wagon is transferred to its countryside reserve, where it stays until 2011. Over the first 4 or 5 years, the car was used sporadically for hunting within the property, until it was parked up with 11,122 km and remained parked from then on.