[5] It was engineered by Engesa in response to a perceived Brazilian Army requirement for a light armored car capable of replacing its unarmored utility vehicles in the liaison and security role.

[1] It was ultimately rejected for large scale service with the Brazilian Army due to concerns over the limited mobility of its four-wheeled chassis but achieved some minor successes on the export market.

[1] By the 1960s and 1970s, most modern armies had recognized a niche for armored vehicles in secondary battlefield tasks, such as providing information and rear security for larger mechanized formations.

[5] In 1977, Engesa began development work on an armored scout car which it intended to market to the army as a potential replacement for the jeep class.

[10] The Cypriots were not especially interested in the vehicle's utility as a scout car and modified their Jararacas with MILAN anti-tank guided missiles, converting them into tank destroyers used to support the heavier EE-9 Cascavels in their light armored units.

[3] Engesa subsequently began fitting all Jararacas with a filtering system designed to enable their crews to operate in a nuclear, chemical, and biological (NBC) warfare environment; this was apparently in response to pressure from another potential export customer, Libya, which had expressed an interest in the vehicle type.

[7] Libya later entered into negotiations to purchase 180 Jararacas once it was satisfied the specified alterations had been carried out; however, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) theorized that the vehicles were intended for a third party such as Iran.

[7] At the end of the 1980s, Engesa found the Jararaca increasingly non-competitive as it had to compete with a surplus of other light armored vehicles appearing on the international market in the wake of the 1989 Revolutions and the reduction of Cold War tensions.

[12] Deploying the Jararaca with units that were equipped primarily with Engesa vehicles also helped simplify logistics and training on the divisional level, a crucial factor in an army which acquired its hardware from as many diverse sources as Iraq.

[15] This was not considered a violation of any end-user agreement because Engesa had refused to place restrictive conditions on the resale or transfer of its products purchased by Libya.

[16] Although the Brazilian Army had initially rejected the Jararaca for service, it received a number of Engesa's prototypes, pre-production vehicles, and working demonstrators as a result of that company's closure in 1993.