In today’s luxury and performance-car market, nearly every highline manufacturer produces a sport utility vehicle, a trend that began with the Lexus RX and Mercedes-Benz M-Class in 1998 and has flourished with evermore extravagant offerings from Aston Martin, Bentley, and Maserati, to name a few.

Forty years ago, however, the market was quite different.

Only one highline automobile manufacturer dared to build and SUV: Lamborghini.

While production versions of the Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen and Hummer H1 would popularize the concept of a road-ready military-grade SUV for civilian consumption, in 1980 that idea was quite novel.

Leave it to Lamborghini, the company responsible for the first production-based mid-engine V-12 supercar, to explore such uncharted territory.

In 1977, Sant’Agata Bolognese-based Italian automaker began examining the potential for a new niche product, a luxury all-terrain vehicle that the manufacturer hoped to shop to the United States Army.

The so-called Cheetah...