Thankfully for us, the vendor has described his journey to restore this vanishingly rare vehicle to Auto Italia magazine, in whose March 2026 edition - which comes with the car - you will find an in-depth write-up of the 5-year project.

He believes that this ‘Matta’ was still on active service in some branch of the Italian military until the early 1970s, although the car came with no military records to definitively determine that.

The vendor is the former owner of an engineering company and is no stranger to restoring classic vehicles.

He tracked down and bought this AR51 in Italy.

He was relieved to find that the ladder chassis was absolutely sound, solid and free of rot.

He was rather less relieved to discover the scale and nature of the restoration work that would unfold over the next 5 years, a period during which he says the AR51 “kicked and fought all the way” .

He was helped immensely by being able to call upon the advice, knowledge and expertise of Enrico Checchinato, wh...