Go to any kit car show and what do you see? OK, other than rows of Cobras? Lamborghini replicas. Long ones, short ones, fastidiously accurate ones, and others that wouldn't fool your granny.
It must have happened when the first Fiero rolled off the assembly line; someone took one look and said, "You know, I think I can make a Lambo out of one of those!" And so they did. Others made custom frames to hold everything from V-8 Chevys to four-banger Volkswagens.
But after all these years, why does the Lamborghini still hold sway in the exotic kit car market? Let's take a look back to understand why the Lamborghini is such a venerated marque, and then review some Lamborghini kits of the past.
Launching The LamboLamborghini came to life in 1962, started by Italian industrialist Ferruccio Lamborghini in the town of Sant'Agata Bolognese. He was a self-made millionaire who wanted to build fast cars and make money doing it. The first model was the '64 350GT, a graceful front-engine, two-seat sports car with a high-revving 3.5L V-12 engine designed by Giotto Bizzarrini and bodied by Carrozzeria Touring.
The 350GT was a breakthrough design that was both faster and better-engineered than street Ferraris of the time. The 350GT sold well but was soon replaced by a bored-out 3.9-liter 400GT. This model was in turn stretched into the 400GT 2+2, with a tiny back seat suitable only for midgets and tiny children.
In 1965 Lamborghini stunned the exotic car world with the prototype of the new Miura, a mid-engine GT with a transverse V-12 and a top speed of just over 170 mph! Although production problems prevented the first production Miura from being delivered until 1967, wealthy enthusiasts around the world were standing in line when it finally showed up. Unfortunately, the Miura set a pattern that long shadowed Lamborghini fortunes. Lovely beyond words, the Miura proved to be temperamental, fragile, and difficult to service. Although the Miura was the main attraction in the Lamborghini tent, the front-engined models continued in production.
In 1968 the 400GT 2+2 body was changed to a cleaner, but less interesting, shape and renamed the Islero. A roomier, true four-seat model, the Jarama, was soon added to the line. But Lamborghini was in financial trouble due to meager sales and typical Italian labor problems. In 1972 the Miura was dropped and the company was sold to a pair of investors. Ferruccio left the car business, sold his other companies, and ran his own winery until his death in 1993.
After cancelling the Miura, it took two years for Lamborghini to replace it with what would become a synonym for Lamborghini: the Countach. This new model, styled by Carrozzeria Bertone, was the wildest thing on wheels when it made its debut in 1974. The V-12 was turned back-to-front and the doors tilted up like scissors. Like the Miura, the Countach had a long development period, paid for and administered by the first wave of customers (thereby providing a business model for today's software industry!). The Countach was outrageously fast and looked like nothing else on the planet!
Meanwhile, Lamborghini's new owners launched an ambitious, if ill-conceived, plan to develop a smaller V-8-powered GT car to sell at a lower price. The first effort was the Urraco, introduced in 1970. It was a dud mechanically and financially, though the following Silhouette and Jalpa models were much improved. (The last Jalpas were built in the late '80s.)
Lamborghini also built a small number of a huge Hummer-like military-ute-type vehicle called the LM002. It had a huge 7L Lamborghini V-12 engine, but failed to catch on with oil-rich sheikdoms. These failures left Lamborghini in dire straits.