Sorry I’m a bit late on this. It was a mere coincidence I found this page while googling some Leelanau stuff. I saw that photo and was like, “Holy cow, what does a Pinz do in the Glen Arbor Sun?!”
I mean, for a former officer of the Swiss Army Medical Corps (now living in Suttons Bay), that vehicle is absolutely unmistakable. I drove those myself in the ‘seventies and early ‘eighties, both the four- and six-wheelers (for twelve passengers), plus the ambulance version with the much higher roof.
They all were terribly noisy because of their air-cooled engines but reliable and, compared to many other kinds of military vehicles, very easy to steer, almost like your ordinary pick-up truck. We didn’t have that decorative deer skull above the front bumper, though.
By the way, the term “Pinzgauer” refers to a horse breed indigenous to the Central and Eastern Alps. The same applies to the “Haflinger”, a smaller breed from roughly the same area, after which the baby sister of the Pinz, also made by Steyr-Puch, was named, 5 ft wide, less than 12 ft long, not much bigger than the U.S. Military M274, a.k.a. the “Mechanical Mule.*
