Lamborghini V12 timeline | evo DIARIES

with such an extraordinary collection of Lamborghinis here it's been crazy not to give you a sort of guided tour through the history of Lamborghini and this is where it started this is Horacio Lamborghinis first car and it's the 350gt so a front-engine three and a half litre v12 two-seater car coupe a quite an elegant car they actually drive much sported and then perhaps they look but it's I mean it's a GT car and it's Webber there's always this myth of whether Valusia Lamborghini had this Ferrari 330 wasn't satisfied with and he was going to make a better car so that's where it started but boy did we move on from this point because after the 350 G tuna 400 ziti came this the lamborghini miura just shocked the world when they showed it or when these vibrant colors like this this is actually an S it's not the very first one but it's very very similar to it because it's you can see the wheels are slightly intersect that's how you tell the early cars it's a completely different car to the 350gt because this mid engined v12 4 litre revs to 8,000 RPM no one had ever seen the car like this this was really the start of the supercar era but the style of it that's what everybody loves about the mirror which to this day is there a more beautiful car just so you start the early car when we have a look what happens next there's smaller wheels on this and you tell the early cars because of these eyelashes around the headlights very intricate these are all steel and individually numbered and there are nightmare when you're restoring a car when you're trying to find this all this correct metalwork and getting it absolutely perfect let's move on to what happened after this color so after the 400s came this the SV the Muir s view the ultimate Miura and you can tell the difference between the two cars because they're now they've grown the rear wheel arch here and you can see the bigger wheels on it this is 375 horsepower now we started about 325 horsepower 375 for this one the ultimate Europe Road going I think it's absolutely stunning this particular example was a UK car and I've known this car for several years it's been in restoration he bought it and he thought he'd just taken in for a simple service and then it grew and grew and he actually bought when he bought it was red and then they took the windscreen out as they're going to repaint it and discover this color underneath so this is its original color and it's actually just one of the concours top prize in the sp the other difference on a SV is it has a bigger air intake in the sill here just feed-in air round in the back of the engine and into the wheel arch with the brakes what's crazy about Lamborghini is why they're doing this incredible Miura recipe they had other cars they are producing one of them being the four seater Espada totally different that's gonna have a look at one of those and here it is this is actually an s2 version which I can tell because it's got the spinners the same wheels as the Miura 2+2 configuration really a lot of space and one of the bar Mia's looking cars I think Lamborghini Aero produce but incredibly popular they actually sold around 1200 of these so way more than me Ora and it just is a sense that Lamborghini had these two completely different cars within their portfolio there is the next version after this is called the s3 it's a bit of a shame because it's it it's had to comply with certain American legislation and the design purity was gone but this was a period 1771 when designers would just had free reign they could produce anything and this is a very good example in the early 70s things were going pretty well for Lamborghini had the Espada in the amaura and the engineer behind those cars a chap called Bob Wallace a New Zealander and he had a real passion for racing the unfortunate thing that passion for racing was not shared with Ferruccio Lamborghini who was absolutely insistent that Lamborghini would never go racing but Bob Wallace wanted to prove that they could go racing and what you see here is the Miura Jota now this is a pet project of Bob Wallace after hours to show what you could do with the Miura how you could turn it into a race car it's a pretty hardcore turn into a mere into race car because it's not the stiffer chassis but this is this is the result they built one a customer wanted to drive it and wondered he really wanted to buy it and build some more and they gave it to a dealer who then was going to deliver it to the customer and he crashed it on the way there and nothing survives set the engine block and this car was being built up this particular example was built out about 20 years ago from the original team who made that original yota quite an amazing car it's actually done the tortoise is done 650 miles round Italy it's a one-off an absolutely spectacular after the skunkworks that produced the yota came this also from Bob Wallace this crazy car front engine v12 gamma so this is completely stripped out is another pet project of this crazy engineer Bob Wallace who just wanted to do these race cars so this is like a hillclimb special this is a one-off I've never seen it before my life and it's a real opportunity to see it super lightweight the yama was a shorter coupe a version of the Espada so a very different car from both the newer but all the same period we're all talking about this early 70s here but it's actually what was cooking in their works was a really spectacular car the Countach and here it is I mean the contest shocked everyone just like the Miura done a few years earlier and it's not hard to see why this contact was shown in concept form in 1971 the first production cars delivered in 74 and that was the it was actually the LP 400 this is actually the S version which came a little later about a sorry 77 or thereabouts and that just was distinguished because it had these great colossal tires three four five six and tires I'd love to show you the early LP 400 but unfortunates the one car missing from this huge collection Lamborghinis there was one of the tall when he unfortunately nerfed another car and he's got destroyed the front of it but what a spectacular cars I say what's different with this this has the Mueller engine in it same as the sv engine but they've got this super low deck when we have a look at the Muller engine you saw the carburetors are pointing out the top on this on the contest they put the carburetors at the side so they could actually get this viewing out the back it actually reduced the power so when they announced the LP for one of they'd say oh it's got the 375 horsepower same as in your sv and when the S came out it was actually lower power it's 353 because they actually put it on the dyno and realized it didn't actually reduce with those tars with those carburetors I still can't get over the the design of this car 40 years old and just look at it what a design it is one of the things people don't realize with these early contacts it says even lower than the later car so this internally in the contacts class is known as the low roof examples to the four hundred and 400s and what we move to next arrived in 1981 is the 5000 s and not only did it have a bigger engine a 4.7 liter engine they actually increase the cockpit size by about 30 mil and they you can't tell until you put them side by side but the angle or the front screen is slightly more tipped up all the doors are slightly bigger but the thing about the contest Bob Wallace wanted this to be a racing car so the whole chassis honor contest is actually tubular metal beautifully done like a birdcage Maserati or something like that and all the suspension is all done with rows joints it's one of the very few road cars with pure race car suspension has eight rows joints on each corner of the rear tires six on the front very very different to the Miura this is a super stiff chassis really could go racing I just want to show you the engine on this example because this actually won its class at this concours today you don't often find as tidier engine bay as that in a 5,000 s beautifully prepared it's all being around the rally so it's done around a thousand miles but just look at that for a most perfect engine bay where slight panic here but we suddenly got weighed away there we are walking around all the cars trying to do the history and suddenly we now have to leave with a factory so we press the pause button and get up to Sant'Agata it's incredible convoy of the putting the 20 Lamborghinis between bologna and the factory police out riders are out there lots of noise we unfortunately we're a bit late leaving but we'll get there as soon as we can very much b/w money just brilliant well next to this no yeah why so put it next to the Lamborghini Oh okay well we're now at the Lamborghini Factory sorry about the interruption we'll continue with the history and very conveniently the next car in line after the Countach 5,000 s is this the Countach QV and this is a real step jump in horsepower in contact land previously we had a 375 horsepower engine and it was it was the last of the line of the Miura engine but this is a completely different design and the cuvee or Quattro validate stands before valve per cylinder and they change the carburetors as well and this is why you've got this hump very recognizable this is the sort of powder because underneath I'll lift this up these two instead of having the carburetors at the side there now downdraft carburetors and this big change is much better breathing the four valve head and the carburetors push the power for 375 to 455 horsepower on this example I'm told Valentino Balboni did actually tell me someone that were actually producing near of 475 480 horsepower and the big change of this engine they knew they had to do something because back at Ferrari they had the test roster coming they'd heard it and they knew it was still in development and they needed something really special for their aging Countach because this thing had been in production when it came out in 85 oh it's about 1011 years so it was ageing they needed something special and it really delivered the goods this is dramatically faster than any other couldn't have before it because of the horsepower it got and there was yeah as a famous test in the UK - Tony drone and they managed to get a two way average 190 miles an hour it was a bit suspicious whether that was really right but it's happy women both cars is a big difference something I haven't discussed is we look at this one is the wing you often see a wing on the back of a Countach mine actually came with a wing the first instance and Valentina was telling me about this wing the story behind it was a chap called water wolf he had an f1 team wolf racing in the 70s he had if they had one of the early 400s and he put one of the wings off his f1 cars on his contest and it looked like this and everybody said wow that's amazing one of the guys who thought it looked amazing was the producer of the film can ball and he says that's the car we're going to use in my film Campbell so they got one at me he said but the wing is being put on by a customer and they said don't matter it looks too cool we want one of those cars and as soon as he appeared in the film cause every other customer of new contact wanted the wing as well so Lamborghini had to set a factory up to produce these wings but they never her mala gated it because the last thing a Countach actually needs is a wing on the rear because it suffers from anything it's got lift at the front you put a wing on the back which is further behind the rear wheels you just get more lift at the front so Lamborghini made sure that this did nothing it all it adds is drag so they reckon it reduces the top speed by about 15 16 miles an hour so it's a pure vanity object I mean it looks super cool who's having that you know because it isn't effectively an f1 wing but I took it off my car because I just couldn't cope with this thing that actually sort of dominates the design does absolutely nothing apart from slowing you down by 15 16 miles an hour anyway after the QV came the anniversary we're going to have a look at one of those down here we're just on our way to where the anniversary is I thought I show you this wrong because I didn't realize this one was here this is quite rare this is what they did for the US so this is the Quatro valve but it's injection you'll notice that it's completely different than the top it has a different tops to the engine cover because as the name suggests carburetors can no longer pass us red power regulations by the late 80s so they had to do this injection model slightly lower horsebacks about 420 horsepower there abouts very smooth round they're quite well liked these cars they just don't quite have that punch and also don't have the pops and bangs that the carburetor versions like mine still produce all the time you can also tell them because the exhausts come out vertically rather than sort of pointing upwards that's getting a bit a Nawrocki so I better stop there and we'll move on to the anniversary well we're still looking for the elusive anniversary contest there's another variant I'll just show you here for true container X this is called the 88 and a half and you can tell an 88 and half because of these side sills stead of having the sills that sort of wrap around they've got these ones with the straights to feed extra air into the rear wheel arch and to sort of help cool the brakes and things very rare about 1516 right-hand drive cars like that anyway we'll continue looking for the anniversary right found it here it is contrast anniversary built for celebrate their 25 years of Lamborghini and it's quite different as you can see it's basically the Quattro valve mechanically it's its near-identical there is rumor and that's all it is that it's slightly wider track slightly different the rear suspension but fundamentally it's the still the Quattro valve with the carburetor dome etc but what's changed they've added this craft structure and it's it's really quite circle it's such a statement on the contest those big that sort of rear lights and the flat front they had to build in a bumper as well that be went beyond the exhaust pipes and also this all while they thought well while we're about it we'll just have a look at the cooling of it and so they added the straights here there's completely different airbox because the vertical radiators are here and just to vent air out as well an event more a bit more air out of the engine bay and it sort of didn't really help the look so nobody says it's really their favourite contest the sad well the fact is behind all this this is the most sorted contact of them all and it's one of those little sleeper sitting in the classifies I do wonder if some people are going to either clean these up and make it look like a coach of valve or continue the anniversary because it's the most sorted can check out there and therefore it should actually be one of the favored because it's one of the best to drive now this sort finished last one is built in 1990 and then another sea change happened at Lamborghini which we'll get to next and here we are we get to the Lamborghini Diablo big changes here engine grew from 5.2 in the contrast of 5.7 liters here horsepower fire and horsepower and it's actually a bigger car altogether again the safety regulations were coming in the asses you've got a member was actually arrived in 71 shown in concept form first customer 74 so it lived a long life but this was their new sports car this was Lamborghinis future and it it's a it's one of the big changes with it obviously it's longer bit wider it's quite a lot heavier it hasn't got that delicacy and the chassis that the Countach had but they added as we'll see in later iterations it went on in came a pretty special car really dramatic forward cabin design the sloping glass on it bringing coming down that you're sitting really forward that big v12 at the back no power steering which is just a nightmare on these cars and his big - pinnacle you can almost have to peer over it when you have a look inside really heavy clutch as well quite a brutish car it was I already loved the design of it but it was it was quite hard work to drive this but they had lots of things up the sleepers would get to look at some of the other cars but this is a big revolution for Lamborghini when the Diablo arrived in 1991 so after the Diablo arrival in 1991 Lamborghini didn't make many changes until 93 and this arrived on the back of your Lamborghini VT VT was viscous coupling and it was the four-wheel drive system I mean getting introduced to harness all that horsepower generation from the 5.7 liter engine they also made some other changes they put power steering on and revised the - set the - lower but there's a really exciting car they had in the wings the SC 30 and that comes next another anniversary model the SC 30 30 years of Lamborghini now and they knew that the Diablo was suffering a bit because it was quite heavy I was the one thing over the contact had gained about 200 kilos of Sarabeth so this is their attempt to make a lighter weight diabolo and it's a pretty they was pretty extreme really they did a way for example the electric windows are gone all you got was these little tiny lecture cuts here does plastic windows here that's all you got ventilation air-conditioning went it went back to two wheel drive no power steering and the engine was increased to 530 horsepower so a real hardcore sort of race car this carbon 28 were converted to yota spec and you can spot those this one isn't one but they have air intakes here and they were just pure race car they were upped and close to 595 horsepower from the 5.7 liter engine so a very extreme car indeed and this is pretty mental this one I haven't seen any jota's here but perhaps we find them right so we're in 94 here let's move to 95 okay now we're in 95 and one of my favorite Diablos arrives this is the Diablo SV and they again how to rethink of what the Diablo should be and just made it a bit more sporty but actually made it less expensive as well which is a rare combination so the SV got still had the 5.7 liter engine Depp 517 horsepower but they made it a bit lighter it's a bit stripped out inside and they had shorter gearing they did a way of trying to chase 200 miles an hour so it's more accelerative and then it also has this great engine top which is from the Jota sports so you have these two intakes sort of peering over top of the cabin and I have to say this is still a sleeper in the classify but it's my tip for the top Diablo SV superb driving machine two wheel drive a really good Diablo and underrated well the late 90s was a really quite exciting time in Lamborghinis history because in 98 VW bought Lamborghini and they really started invest in the brand and also the Diablo had another sword midlife reshape it had these new lights there I mean pop-up lights it actually got these lights and gave it a bit of a face and it also got a revised dash inside and straight after this is a one of the last SBS made is how you recognize these lights but straight out of this a really exciting Diablo right and there's one over here I want to show you now we get to the Diablo GT which is basically that Diablo SV on drugs you see it's completely different the front this sort section here so it really feeds the radiator in the front but the big change here the engine grows for 5.7 liter to six litres 575 horsepower carbon everything they really try alight in this car they only produce 80 of these monsters and they were true monsters to drive with that amount of horsepower going through the rear wheels huge great scoops above the cockpit as well a very very special car and very collectible today so after the SV in the GT in 99 came this this is it came arrive in 2000 this is the six liter Diavolo so it gets the same six liter engine as we saw in the GT introduced new GT slightly down tuned to 550 horsepower for your four-wheel drive is back but it's just the influence of VW algae they're really upping the quality of Lamborghini and this one really surprised us when we first drove this car this was a very polished Diablo and today are very sought after it's dead easy to understand why because it sort of looks super clean but really does dry very nicely so after the six liter Diablo comes a big change there's a new designer in at Lamborghini Luke Danka volt and a brand new look for Lamborghini and here we are the arrival of the Murcielago and completely re skinned Diablo a really good design Luke danke Volk did the design and when you think there's nothing really different under the skin I think it looks so it looks terrific as it looks so different to the Diablo but looks modern and fresh definitely Lamborghini Luc dong quote said to me that he was teased by Valentino he said or did you like the arse panel TV like the design and he came back he says it's the mechanicals that matter on a Lamborghini you just designed the engine cover and there's all a slight push down but I think it's a great design I'll show you some of the keys sort of design features that made this car looks so different to the Diablo first of all you have the projector headlights at the front rear this saw very clean sweep and this huge intake coming in at bottom there with a ball cooler behind it sort of subtle badging and this was air intakes that sort of came rose up and went down again just much tidy around the back later additions like this one became optional to have glass over the engines expose the engine the engine was grew again 6.2 - 575 horsepower big difference this car but a really great looking car just a thoroughly sorted modern design in 2004 they did a roaster version the other thing that was important on this one introduced the paddle shift so you have a manual or a paddle shift Murcielago and this went on to 2004 when they did a midlife facelift and we got to the lp640 and I'll see if I can find one of those for you we're now in 2006 murciélago has its major facelift and we get to this the lp640 and the really exciting car I thought again the design moved on you can reckon instantly recognizable by a giant exhaust at the rear I score it's like a rabbit hole is you just think people animals could live down there it's so big at the back the other changes were even wider scoops down on the sill here and then this big upgrade sit gets its name 640 fit 640 PS so 635 horsepower they're about really quick car still four-wheel drive and just also at the front it's more air dynamic at the front more aggressive at the front I use a great-looking car this one but we go on to one more special edition after this that's the crowning glory of the Murcielago and it's over there I know we arrived in 2009 and Lamborghini Wow's us again with the LP 674 SV what a crazy nutter machine this one is six point five liter again but 670 horsepower lightened as carbon fire here there and everywhere on this these monster rear wing that's optional actually different treatment on the rear over the engine massive scoops at the front are me just a wild looking machine Lamborghini at its best and still today this is it I think there's a very collectible car people who own them have just absolutely adored them so the six empty is the end of the line of the murciélago but what a way to go out but when we see what happens next that's pretty special to a new chapter for Lamborghini the Aventador arrived brand new from head to toe or carbon construction six point five liter engine 700 horsepower four-wheel drive and the design as wild as we just loved from Lamborghini I think it's the most dramatic design I think this is a start of a new chapter we don't know where this is going to go but what a starting point being hugely popular still got a waiting list now in 2013 I think it's been great fun to go around this carpark well while this 50th anniversary is on to see every single iteration of the v12 Lamborghini you've come all the way from the 350gt to the Aventador that's Lamborghinis history in a nutshell how much I try to wrap it up as tight as I can and now it's time for a beer

Channel: EVO

Views: 148,555

Keywords: Lamborghini, 50th, tour, anniversary, 350GT, 400GT, Miura, SV, Countach, Jarama, V12, evo magazine, evo diaries, harry metcalfe, lp400, Diablo, LM002, Murcielago, Aventador, Birthday

Id: tiqMVFPLHSM

Length: 24min 6sec (1446 seconds)

Published: Fri May 24 2013