It was based on the drive train and chassis components of the EE-9 Cascavel armored car and initially emerged as part of a project to develop an amphibious troop-carrying counterpart to that vehicle for the Brazilian Army and Marine Corps (CFN).

[5] Urutus proved to be extremely popular in the Middle East, particularly with Libya and Iraq, both of which purchased large numbers to complement their fleets of Cascavel armored cars.

[8] Between 1964 and 1967 the Brazilian government launched a program to revitalize the arms industry in response to growing US reluctance to transfer modern defense technology otherwise needed for its own war effort in Vietnam.

[8] This provided the impetus for a number of Brazilian engineering firms to begin developing new weapons for domestic purposes, namely Engenheiros Especializados SA (Engesa).

[9] Engesa president José Luiz Whitaker Ribeiro created the final design plans for the Cascavel and for a parallel project known as the Carro Transporte de Tropas Anfíbio (CTTA), which was to be an amphibious troop-carrying variant mounted on a similar chassis.

[5] The Urutu benefited greatly from the initial export success of the EE-9 Cascavel, with a number of national armies ordering both vehicle types to simplify logistics.

[3] In 1980, the US Army issued a requirement for a new wheeled armored vehicle for a proposed new mobile deployment force, able to bring to bear air-portable firepower in the event of a crisis in the Middle East or Asia.

[3] Financial considerations and the perceived unreliability of the US as an external supplier of military equipment provided the impetus for the Urutu program's success with the Brazilian Army.

[12] Engesa had cultivated a close working relationship with army officials, and personal ties between that firm and the latter were instrumental in securing the initial contract for a new armored personnel carrier.

[10] The Urutus tested by the Brazilian Marines were fitted with trim vanes, shrouded propellers, twin rudders, and four air intake tubes to negotiate open sea.

[10] The Urutu remained in front-line service with the Brazilian Army for almost forty years, at which point its basic technology had become quite dated in spite of continuous upgrades; since 2014 it has been superseded by the VBTP-MR Guarani.

[11] The rugged nature of the vehicles, as well as the fact that they were technologically simple and straightforward to maintain made them attractive purchases for a number of armies in South America, the Middle East, and Africa.

[12] Furthermore, Engesa was financially dependent on the prospect of successful exports; despite the large orders for Cascavels and Urutus placed by the Brazilian Army, it would be unable to sustain production otherwise.

[14] The domestic market was simply insufficient to support an armored vehicle industry, so export orders were perceived as helping achieve the economy of scale needed to make Engesa's operations viable.

[16] South Africa was the first foreign power to show an explicit interest in the Urutu and even tested a model optimized for southern African conditions as the Vlakvark.

[15] The Cascavel's combat debut in the 1977 Libyan–Egyptian War aroused international interest in Engesa armored vehicles, especially in the Middle East, and a number of Arab states such as Iraq dispatched military missions to Brazil that year to evaluate them.

[22] It is unclear where Iran obtained its Urutu fleet; while most would appear to have been captured from Iraq, French historian Pierre Razoux asserted that at least some of the Iranian Urutus were acquired directly through Brazil.

[3] An Urutu's hull is composed of two distinct layers of welded ballistic steel able to resist point-blank small arms fire, including 7.62×39mm armor-piercing ammunition.

[2] Engesa produced a wide variety of variants which grafted modifications on its basic production models; of these the Uruvel is the most well-known, but the others went largely unnamed and were often designated according to their intended role.

[26] In 1993, Colombia produced a single prototype designated El Zipo, which was essentially a simplified Urutu rebuilt with local parts and a reverse engineered hull.