New Laforza Forces Its Critics to Take Second, Serious Look

The Italian-bred Laforza sport utility vehicle, broad as the Coliseum and looking just as indestructible, trundled into the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show last year to a consensus of concerns.

Here, muttered those of us who feel qualified to mumble such rudeness, was yet another improbable vehicle created by the latest team of impossible dreamers.

At best, we frowned, this Italo-American hybrid would become a callow pretender to the royally warranted, filthy rich and terribly famous clientele of Range Rover. At worst, its undercapitalized California parent company would sell a dozen vehicles to keep its executives in commodities before they did a DeLorean.

Saturday, the four-wheel-drive Laforza makes its second appearance at the Greater LA Auto Show.

The shrieks you’ll hear will be from critics falling on their pencils.

The car remains less than absolutely perfect. Fit and finish are not what the price should deliver. Off-road, where hard suspension is a must, the Laforza’s is softer than the springs and shocks of its competition. But the car is coming together with Laforza Automobiles Inc. of Hayward intent on make every mechanical change a definite improvement.

In one year, the vehicle has grown from a dabble into a very serious motor car indeed. Its construction--a two-continent design and assembly process that once sounded like Rube Goldberg singing Puccini--is being hailed as a new high in commercial ingenuity. Laforza has evolved into a luxury Clydesdale that clearly has mastered that difficult blend of muscular mud wrestler, cushioned highway dancer and tug o’ war champ with the pull of a shipyard winch.

Laforza reports 120 vehicles sold to date with orders steadily outpacing production. It hopes to sell 1,000 this year. And, say company officials, there’s redesign on the drawing boards, and company conversation hinges on when, not if.

Granted, Laforza’s appeal is somewhat narrow and definitely centered on gentleman farmers, horse breeders and those with a regular need to tow Miss Budweiser to Lake Tahoe.

Its price of $43,850 will remain an indisputable argument for those explaining why they are sticking to their Wagoneers, Broncos and Pathfinders.

For all its strengths, Laforza (Italian for power or strength) is short several niceties, comfort cues and the elegant substance that is the trademark of Range Rover. It shares neither heritage nor the royal prestige of its distant cousin from Warwickshire. For the tightest comparison, consider Mel Gibson standing alongside the Duke of Edinburgh.

But for those with the money and a want for a competent, limited production vehicle that will attract the admiration of a knowing few (an insider’s rationale understood perfectly by those who prefer Veuve Cliquot over Dom Perignon), then this is the buggy.

Laforza, unquestionably, is produced for the U.S. market.

Yet its bloodline began in Italy in the ‘70s as a military truck suitable for hauling anti-terrorist troops or being dropped by parachute from the back of a C-130. The vehicle later was civilized by the Italians as the multipurpose Fissore Magnum, and appeared at the 1984 Geneva auto show.

That’s where California businessman and impassioned car person Joe Monterosso saw the vehicle. He was looking for access to the American automotive market. If you took the body of the Magnum, went his thinking, replaced plastic with steel, subtracted portions here, added something here, straightened this line, added a softer arc to that curve . . . you might have a contender for America’s growing sport-utility market.

So Monterosso now purchases his redesigned Magnum body shells in Italy. Each is formed into a rolling chassis-body by Pininfarina in Turin, then painted and trimmed on the same assembly lines that carry the Ferrari Testarossa and Cadillac Allante. The upholstery is hand-sewn leather. The dash and door strips are satin walnut.

At auto converters C&C Inc., of Brighton, Mich., the bodies are equipped with Ford’s 5-liter V8 and four-speed automatic transmission--all with the blessing of Ford, which supplies Laforza with a six-year, 60,000-mile power train warranty.

The four-wheel-drive system comes from Chrysler and can be shifted from 2WD to 4WD on the fly by a single dashboard button. Would that such slickness, says Monterosso, characterized Laforza’s maiden year.

Not the least of the corporate problems, he said, was the unraveling of a complex funding arrangement with a British-based company piping funds through investment shelters in the Channel Islands. In the end, Monterosso added, Laforza was forced to buy out of its deal with ailing Eagle Trust, currently under investigation by the British government, and has refinanced through employee and outside investments.

Then, he continued, there was the difficulty of working with the clashing mentalities of two car builders in two countries. “And coming from our prototype to their production was like entering a different world,” Monterosso said.

“Their (Italian) standard of fit and finish is very European . . . we had problems with screws missing, crooked window insulation, screws on kick panels too tight, headliners on the roof not straightened before attaching down, stupid stuff like that.

“It was like having a pair of Italian shoes--thin soled and only good for a short period of time. Now that might have been good enough for other cars on their (assembly) line, but it certainly wasn’t good enough for us.”

So Monterosso has stationed quality control representatives at critical stages of production. Constant inspection and dialogue last year produced a 50-item list of fixes for 1990--from reducing the rake of rear seat backs to remounting a roof level radio antenna that decapitates itself on any garage roof or parking tunnel in America today. Even Monterosso is on his 11th antenna.

That, however, is the heavy price of adapting an existing design to new purpose, and it remains Laforza’s biggest drawback.

The sun roof on the test car (an 8,800 mile veteran of automotive journalists’ attempts to kill it) is obviously a retrofit item, and its finishing trim is suggestive of handyman’s tape around a hole hacked in the roof. A fender fillet is lopsided, fitting flush against one side of the hood but indented a half-inch on the left.

Why are there two dimples in the lower rim of the rear window? Maybe in its former military configuration, the two bosses of dual windshield wipers fitted there. Why are those instruments so black and white and Spartan? Because they’re the vehicle’s original Government Issue.

But in terms of purpose, the Laforza is sumptuous and solid, a tall, hefty clunker of a thing with a startling amount of nimbleness. Also a turning circle of just 32 feet, which is close to that of a London taxi cab.

True, it is no sports coupe and should not be driven as such. But operate it, as we did, like a Buick of yesteryear, box its ears a little now and then, and there is indeed its soft feel of a big sedan with the plodding verve of a linebacker.

Ergonomically, it is a thorough car with most everything in its place and almost everything self-explanatory--with the exception of door openings that, from Day 1, were a fumble for a black handle on a black door panel in a black hole somewhere alongside your knees.

The digital clock is another pain, mounted high in the upper windshield frame, where it cannot be read unless you lean backward. It also measures time by the European method, which has little purpose except when driving to meet a general at 1845 hours.

Add a skimpy dash hood to the gripes. If larger, it would fully shield the instrument lighting and keep distracting reflections from the inside of the windshield at night.

It’s four-door and a full five-seater, with width and room that’s like a four-poster bed in a hotel room. But losing the huge “Ls” stitched into the rear headrests should be added to Monterosso’s job list. They’re about as tacky as Laverne’s sweater.

The engine and transmission is exactly what one would expect of a Ford V8 reined in just a little by a vehicle weight of more than 2 1/2 tons. That makes it a tad sluggish from rest, yet the Laforza retains enough oomph from its 185-horsepower engine to thunder alongside and just ahead of freeway traffic.

Booting the pedal, however, can be pricey. Some cars are gas guzzlers. With a measured city-highway average of 12 m.p.g. (way below official projections), the test Laforza slurped before inhaling.

Yet off-road, its four wheels become the four feet of an elephant that with deliberation and enormous power in reserve should carry the vehicle up the bad side of Mt. Baldy.

Brakes--discs up front and drums behind--seemed somewhat limp when the situation demanded anchors. But that, again, could have been the penalty for 8,000 miles of hard wear on pads and liners.

Monterosso does not live or build by illusions.

He acknowledges that Laforza remains a new kid on a heartless block and that the company has many years to travel.

“But the (trade) press has been very kind to us, people are discovering that we are building a robust, strong and meaningful car, not a toy,” he said. “We have made a little notch in the first rung of the ladder.”

Yet he knows the future hinges on one cardinal premise of free enterprise--that even a fine product must catch hold before the capital runs out.

In that delicate race, may Laforza be with him.

1990 LAFORZA COST: Base and as tested: $43,850. As tested: $43,850. ENGINE: Ford V8, 5 liters developing 185 horsepower. PERFORMANCE: 0-60 m.p.h., as tested, 15 seconds. Top speed, manufacturer’s estimate, 90+ m.p.h. Fuel economy, city-highway average, 11 m.p.g. CURB WEIGHT: 5250 pounds. REBATE PROGRAM: None. THE GOOD: Interior decorations from Italy, mechanical engineering born in the USA. Cavernous interior for five people and USC Trojans marching band. Comfortable roadwork and more muscles in the dirt than a backhoe. THE BAD: Afterthought fit and finish. Self-destructing radio antenna. Windshield reflections. THE UGLY: Monogrammed headrests.