MY FEEDLY

Ferves Ranger – The Cutest Off-Roader Ever Designed

This is the Ferves Ranger, and there can be little doubt that it’s the cutest little off-roader ever built. It was designed by Carlo Ferrari as a lightweight and affordable “mini Jeep” that would be perfect for use on farms and vineyards, as well as on Italy’s tight twisting streets and alleyways.

Famed industrial designer Philippe Starck owned a green Ferves Ranger for many years, there were a number of others sold to estate owners in Italy and around Europe, and a small number made it across the pond into private ownership in the United States.

The Ferves Ranger

Carlo Ferrari named his budding young company Ferves, a portmanteau of “FERrari VEicoli Speciali” (Ferrari Special Vehicles), it obviously wasn’t possible for him to use his own surname to name the company, as this had already been done by an enterprising man named Enzo a few years earlier.

The design of the Ranger was deliberately simple, it uses a simple steel and riveted aluminum chassis/body and many parts from both the Fiat 500 and the Fiat 600D. This made sourcing spares easy, and it was similarly straightforward to find mechanics who could work on them.

Above Image: The Ranger can seat four, it has a folding top for inclement weather and the windshield can be folded down when desired.

Power was provided by a rear-mounted Fiat 500 engine, and the all-independent suspension comes from the Fiat 600D. When ordering your new Ranger you could choose either four-wheel drive or two-wheel drive, and there were a number of color options.

A folding black vinyl soft top was provided, and inside the car you’ll find (cosy) seating for four adults. The driver is faced with all the gauges he or she needs, three pedals, a steering wheel, a manual shifter and not much else.

The windscreen can fold down flat, just like the Willys Jeep from WW2, and a spare tire is fixed to the top off the engine bay lid in the rear. Due to the exceedingly low curb weight of the Ferves Ranger it rarely needed any help when bogged, occupants could generally just get out and manually push it back onto firm ground.

The 18 bhp Fiat 500 engine is a 499cc air-cooled two-cylinder unit, although not powerful by any measure it was more than enough to get the Ranger moving. Power was fed through either a 4-speed (on the earlier models) or a 5-speed manual transmission, and later models could also be ordered with locking differentials.

Above Image: The All 600 examples of the Ranger were left-hand drive and came with manual transmissions mated to Fiat 500 engines.

Sadly many of the original Rangers that were build have succumbed to rust or neglect over the years, just 600 were built and it’s not known how many have survived to the modern day.

The unusual nature of them combined with the interesting history has seen them become a hit with collectors, and there’s always plenty of interest when one comes up for sale.

The 1968 Ferves Ranger Shown Here

The Ferves Ranger you see here is a beautifully presented two-wheel drive example, it’s in remarkably original condition throughout sporting bright canary yellow paint work, black upholstery, and a black folding top.

If you’d like to see more or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing, it’s due to roll across the auction block on the 22nd of May at the Amelia Island auction.

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The Isdera Imperator 108i – A Rare Supercar That Almost Never Existed

The Isdera Imperator 108i was a supercar born from the stubborn refusal of its designer to let it die as “just” a concept car – it was originally designed by Eberhard Schulz as the Mercedes-Benz CW311 concept car in 1978.

Mercedes had opted not to put it into production, but they didn’t stand in Schulz’s way when he set out to create his own production model of the car under the the marque “Isdera” that he founded in 1982. The company’s unusual name is a portmanteau of “Ingenieurbüro für Styling, Design und Racing,” or in English, “Engineering Company for Styling, Design and Racing.”

Eberhard Schulz had a fascinating career, he studied mechanical engineering but dropped out before graduating to built his own super car – the Erator GT with 400 hp and a top speed of over 300 km/h.

He drove this car to both Mercedes and Porsche to apply for a job, he landed a job with Porsche in 1971 but maintained contact with Mercedes over the years. The cars built by Schulz would typically be powered by Mercedes engines but would use many Porsche parts including interior elements sourced from cars like the Porsche 928.

Above Image: The Imperator 108i has gullwing doors inspired by the Mercedes-Benz 300SL.

There can be little argument that the Isdera Imperator 108i was one of the most beautiful mid-engined supercars of its era. It was typically compared with cars like the Lamborghini Countach, the Ferrari F40, the Porsche 959, and later with cars like the Jaguar XJ220.

Schulz designed the Imperator 108i with a tubular steel spaceframe chassis onto which a bonded fiberglass body would be fitted. Front suspension consists of double wishbones and coil springs over tubular shock absorbers with an anti-roll bar, and in the rear you’ll find upper and lower transverse links, coil springs over tubular shock absorbers, and an anti-roll bar.

The car has power-assisted rack-and-pinion steering and ventilated disc brakes on all four corners which helped bring the car’s relatively low weight of 1,250 kgs or 2,756 lbs to a stop when required.

The mid-mounted engine used in the Imperator 108i changed over the course of the vehicle’s production run. Initially the car was fitted with a 5.0 litre M117 Mercedes-Benz V8 producing 296 bhp and 336 lb ft of torque.

Over time Mercedes developed more advanced and subsequently more powerful engines which were used including a 5.6 litre version of the M117, an AMG 5.6 litre V8, and finally a 6.0 litre AMG V8 with 32 valves capable of 390 bhp.

Above Image: The interior offers comfortable seating for two with the driver encapsulated by a wrap around dashboard like a fighter jet.

Power was sent to the rear wheels via a reliable 5-speed ZF manual transmission. Power output and performance specifications changed over time, the initial cars were capable of 283 km/h (176 mph) and a 0 to 60 mph time of 5.0 seconds, with later cars besting these figures significantly.

Isdera would keep the Imperator 108i in production from 1982 until 1993 when it was replaced with the Commendatore 112i, an advanced modern supercar that had a claimed top speed of 370 km/h (230 mph) recorded during testing.

Amazingly Isdera is still in business today, apparently the only way to order a car is to personally call the CEO and ask for one, an unusually personal touch befitting a company that only makes a handful of cars every few years and always to order.

The 1991 Isdera Imperator 108i you see here is due to roll across the auction block with Bonhams at the Monaco Sale ‘Les Grandes Marques à Monaco’ with an estimated hammer price of €500,000 to €700,000 or approximately $590,000 to $830,000 USD.

If you’d like to see more or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.

Images courtesy of Bonhams

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Watch The 1969 East African Safari Rally

The East African Safari Rally was run from 1953 until 2019 under a variety of names, interestingly for the first 19 years of the event it was always won by local African-born drivers – all from either Kenya or Tanzania.

Many have tried to explain this phenomena but it perhaps most likely came down to their familiarity with the local roads and terrain. The first non-African to win it was Hannu Mikkola in 1972 with Gunnar Palm performing co-driver duties in their Ford Escort RS1600.

The most successful driver in the history of the East African Safari Rally is Kenyan driver Shekhar Mehta, who won the event outright five times over ten years in 1973, 1979, 1980, 1981, and 1982 driving three different cars over the years with two different co-drivers.

It’s likely that the East African Safari Rally provided some inspiration for other off-road endurance events like the Paris Dakar Rally. For the first year the race was known as the East African Coronation Safari, from 1960 it was known as the East African Safari Rally until 1974 when it became the Safari Rally.

The race first became an official World Rally Championship event in 1973 and it would remain on the WRC calendar almost every year until the current day, the event is next due to take place later in 2021.

Famous winners of the race over the years have included Colin McRae, Tommi Mäkinen, Richard Burns, Carlos Sainz, Björn Waldegård, Hannu Mikkola, Ari Vatanen, and of course, Shekhar Mehta.

If you’d like to read more about the new version of the East African Safari Rally that uses all vintage cars you can click here to visit the official website.

Images courtesy of Volvo, Alfa Romeo, and Peugeot.

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For Sale: Porsche 911 Safari Rally Car – An East African Safari Winner

There are very few cars we can all agree on, and I think this is probably one of them. It’s a 1975 Porsche 911 Carrera MFI that was built to safari rally specification by the world renowned experts at Tuthill Porsche in Britain.

The car has an extensive competition history, the pinnacle of which was an outright win in the East African Safari in 2017 in the hands of suitably named racing driver Ryan Champion. In total this car has so far raced in four East African Safaris, finishing every one, in 2011, 2013, 2015, and finally with that win in 2017.

The car was built by Tuthill Porsche specifically for racing, with an eye on the biennial East African Safari Rally. The team at Tuthill have been building high-performance Porsches both for the road and for racing for over 35 years, they’re based near Oxfordshire, England and they’ve developed a global reputation for their race winning 911s – particularly their safari rally builds.

Over the decades, cars built by Tuthill have won the London to Sydney Rally, the famous East African Safari Classic Rally three times (2011, 2015, 2017), and the 2015 FIA R-GT Cup to name just a few.

Above Image: The East African Safari Rally is a grueling event that tests drivers and their machines to the limit.

The 1975 Porsche 911 Carrera MFI you see here was converted into a rally car in the 1990s and raced extensively by legendary Irish tarmac rally driver Billy Coleman. It would be after this that it was purchased by Tuthills who rebuilt the car to race in the then-new “Post Historic” class (for cars from 1965 -1977).

Francis Tuthill and his team had already built a slew of race winning pre-1965 Porsche 911 2.0 litre cars that were dominating historic rallying throughout Europe, and the car you see here was a prototype of sorts to enter into the new class.

The car was first driven by Nick Whale in the 1998 RAC Historic Rally, he would buy the car by the end of the year. The next year Whale would win the 1999 Safety Devices Rally Challenge outright as well as the first British Historic Rally Championship held in 2000 over eight rounds – all driving this car. He would later go on to take the outright win in the Ypres tarmac rally in 2001.

In 2002 the car came onto the market, it was bought by its current owner who carried on rallying the car for the next 10 years or so before sending it off to Tuthill once more for conversion into an East African Safari spec rally car.

Above Image: Although technically air-cooled, Porsche 911s have been known to employ external mud-based posterior engine cooling systems during certain stages of the rally.

As a Safari-winning car, it receives an automatic entry to the Goodwood Festival of Speed rally stage, where it won in 2018, and also made a guest appearance at the RAC Club on Pall Mall. It was also selected by Porsche Club GB as one of 30 specially invited cars to attend and participate in Porsche’s 50th Birthday celebrations at Brands Hatch circuit in 2018.

The car is accompanied by its history file which includes an MSA Competition Logbook, MSA papers and an FIA HTP as well as a raft of invoices and history.

It’s now being offered for sale as a potential entrant in future vintage rallies like the East African Safari, with Tuthills estimating that it would cost approximately £40,000 to bring the car up to front-running specification.

If you’d like to read more about this car or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing with Silverstone Auctions. It’s due to cross the auction block on the 27th of March with a guide price of £150,000 to £175,000 which works out to ~$208,500 to $243,000 USD.