Lamborghini V12 timeline

well it's such an extraordinary collection of Lamborghinis here it's be crazy not to give you a sort of guided tour through the history of Lamborghini and this is where it started this is feroo Lamborghini's first car and it's the 350 GT so front engine 3 and 1/2 L V12 two-seater car coupe quite an elegant car they actually drive much sported than perhaps they look but it's I mean it's a GT car and it's whether there's always this myth of whether ferio 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 GT and the 400 GT came this the Lamborghini mura just shocked the world when they showed it all in these vibrant uh 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 the wheels are slightly inset that's how you tell the early cars it's a completely different car to the uh 350 GT because this mid engined V2 12 4 L revs to 8,000 RPM no one had ever seen a car like this this was really the start of the super car era but the style of it that's what everybody loves about the mura which to this day is there a more beautiful car just so you start with 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 ey lashes around the headlights very intricate these are all steel and individually numbered and they're a nightmare when you're restoring a car when you're trying to find this all this correct metal work and getting it absolutely perfect let's move on to what happened after this car so after the 400s came this the SV the mura SVU the ultimate mura and you can tell the difference between the two cars because they 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 at about 325 Hors 375 for this one the ultimate m road going I think it's absolutely stunning this particular example is a UK car and I've known this car for several years it's been in restoration he bought it and he thought he just taken in for a simple service and then it grew and grew and he actually bought when he bought it it was red and then they took the wind screen out as they're going to repaint it and discovered this color underneath so this is its original color and it's actually just one of The Concourse top prize in the SV the other difference on a SV is it has a bigger air intake in the seill here just feeding air around the back of the engine and into the wheel Arch the brakes what's crazy about Lamborghini is while they're doing this incredible M SV they had other cars they were producing one of them being the four- seater asada totally different let's go and 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 MUA uh 2 plus two configuration really a lot of space and one of the barest looking cars I think Lamborghini ever produced but incredibly popular they actually sold around 122 00 of these so way more than mura and it just it's a sense that Lamborghini had these two completely different cars within their portfolio there is the next version after this is called the S3 and it's a bit of a shame CU it's it it it's had to U comply with certain American legislation and the design Purity was gone but this was a period 7071 when the designers would just had free rain they could produce anything and this is a very good example in the early '70s things were going pretty well for Lamborghini had the aspo and the Amura and the engineer behind those cars a chat called Bob Waris a New Zealander and he had a real passion for racing the unfortunate thing that passion for racing was not shared with fuia 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 murea jota now this is a pet project of Bob Wallace after hours to show what he could do with a mura how he could turn it into a race car it's a pretty hardcore turn into a mura into a race car cuz it's not the stiffest chassis but this is this is the result they built one a customer wanted to uh drive it and wanted 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 survived except the engine block and this car was being built up this particular example was built up about 20 years ago from the original team who made that original Yoda quite an amazing car it's actually done the tour this has done 650 Mi round Italy it's a one-off and absolutely spectacular after the Skunk Works that produced the Yota came this also from Bob Wallace this crazy car front engine V12 yarma so this is completely stripped out it's another pet project of this crazy engineer Bob Wallace who just wanted to do these race cars so this is like a hill climb special um this is a one-off I've never seen it before in my life and it's a real opportunity to see it super lightweight the yarma was a shorter Coupe version of the aspada so a very different car from both the M but all of the same period we're all talking about the early '70s here but is actually what was cooking in their Works was a really spectacular car the Countach and here it is I mean the Countach shocked everyone just like the M had done a few years earlier and it's not hard to see why this the contach was shown in concept form in 1971 the first production car was 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 um sorry 77 or thereabouts and that was distinguished because it had these great colossal tires 3 four five section tars I'd love to show you the early LP 400 but unfortunately it's the one car missing from this huge collection of Lamborghinis there was one in the tour and he un fortunately nerfed another car and it's got destroy the front of it but what a spectacular car as I say what's different with this this has the M engine in it same as the SV engine but they got this super low deck when we have a look at the M 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 view in out the back it actually reduced the power so when they announced the lp for1 they say oh it's got the 375 horsepower same as the SV and when the S came out it was actually lower power it's 353 CU they actually put it on the dyo and realized it didn't actually produce with those TS with those carburetors I still can't get over the uh 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 cach is there even lower than the later cars so this internally in the cach Clans is known as the low roof examples so the 400 and 400s and what we moveed to next that arrived in 1981 is the 5000s and not only did it have a bigger engine a 4.7 L engine they actually increased the cockpit size by about 30 mil and they you can't tell until you put them side by side but the angle of the front screen is slightly more tipped up all the doors are slightly bigger but the thing about the contach Bob Wallace wanted this to be a racing car so the whole chassis on a contach is actually tubular metal beautifully done like a bird cage Maserati or something like that and all the suspension is all done with rose joints it's one of the very few road cars with pure race car suspension there's eight Rose joints on each corner of the rear tars six on the front very very very different to the mura this is a super stiff chassis that really could go racing just want to show you the engine on this example cuz this actually won its class at this Concourse today you don't often find as tidy an engine bay as that in a 5000s it's beautifully prepared it's all been around the rally so it's done around 1,000 miles but just look at that for a most perfect engine bay we're slight Panic here cuz we suddenly got wed away there we are walking around all the car trying to do the history and suddenly we now have to leave with the factory so we press the pause button and get up to sanag in this incredible Convoy of 320 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 Money just brilliant next to this no yeah ni so put it next to the Lamborghini 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 line after the kach 5000s is this the kunach QV and this is real step jump in horsepower in in Countach land previously we had a a 375 horsepower engine and it was it was the last of the line of the mura engine but this is a completely different design and the QV or quattra valve stands for four valve per cylinder um and they changed the carburetors as well and this is why you've got this hump very recognizable this is the sort of power Dome because underneath I lift this up you see instead of having the carburetors at the side they're now downdraft carburetors and this big change this much better breathing the four valve head and the carburetors push the power from 375 to 455 horsepower on this example I'm told Valentino Bon did actually tell me some of them were actually producing near 4 75 for 80 horsepower and the big change with this engine they knew they had to do something because back at Ferrari they had the test Rossa coming they had heard it and they knew it was still in development and they needed something really special for their aging contact cuz this thing had been in production when this came out in '85 oh it's about 10 11 years so it was aging they needed something special and it really delivered the goods this was dramatically faster than any other contach before it because of the horsepower it got and there was yeah a famous was test in the UK uh T Tony drawn and they managed to get a two-way average of 190 mph everybody's a bit suspicious whether that was really right but it's having driven both cars there's 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 in the first instance and Valentino was telling me about this Wing the story behind it there was a chat called Walter wolf he had an F1 Team Wolf racing um in the70s he had a had one of the early 400s and he put one of the Wings off his F1 Cs on his cach and it looked like this and everybody said W that's amazing one of the guys who thought it looked amazing was the producer of the film Cannonball and he says that's the car we're going to use in my film Cannonball so they got one Lamborghini said but the wing is being put on by a customer and they said don't worry it looks too cool we want one of those cars and as soon as it appeared in the film of course every other customer of a new contast wanted a wing as well so Lamborghini had to set a fact up to produce These Wings but they never homologated it cuz the last thing a kunach actually needs is a wing on the rear because if It suffers from anything it's got lift at the front and you put a wing on the back which is further behind the rear wheels you just get more lift at the front so lambini made sure that this did nothing all it adds is drag so they reckon it reduces a top speed by about 15 16 M hour so it's a pure vanity object I mean it looks super cool who having you know cuz effectively an F1 Wing but I took it off my car cuz I just couldn't coope with this thing that actually sort of dominates the design does absolutely nothing apart from slowing it down by 15 16 M 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 but I thought I'd show you this one cuz I didn't realize this one was here this is quite rare this is um what they did for the US so this is the quarra 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 suggest carburetors can no longer pass us uh regulations by the late 80s so they had to do this injection model slightly lower horsepower it's about 420 horsepower thereabouts very smooth running they're quite well like these cars they just don't quite have that punch and obviously don't have the pops and bangs that the carburetor versions like mine sort of produce all the time you can also tell them because the exhaust come out vertically rather than sort of poting upwards that's getting a bit anari so I better stop there and we'll move on to the anniversary well we're still looking for the elusive anniversary contach there's another variant I'll just show you here for True contach anx this is called the 88 and a half and you can tell an 88 and a half because of these side seals instead of having the seals that sort of WRA round they've got these ones with the stakes to feed extra air into the rear wheel Arch and to sort of help cool the brakes and things very rare about um 15 16 right hand drive cars like that anyway we'll continue looking for the anniversary right found it here it is kach anniversary built for celebrate their 25 years of um Lamborghini and it's quite different as you can see it's basically the quattra valve mechanically it's it's near identical there is rumor and that's what it is that it's slightly wider track slightly different at the rear suspension but fundamentally it's the the still the quattra valve with the carburetor Dome Etc but what's changed they added this crash structure and it's it's really quite sad cuz it's such a statement on the contast those big that sort of rear lights and the flat front and they had to build in a bumper as well that be went beyond the exhaust pipes and also there always while they thought well while we're about it we'll just have a look at the cooling of it and so they added these strakes here this completely different airbox because the vertical radiators are here and just a vent air out as well and a vent more a bit more air out of the engine bay and it sort of didn't really help the looks it nobody says it's really their favor contat the sad well the fact is behind all this this is the most sorted contat of them all and it's one of those little sleeper sitting in the classifi I do wonder if some people are going to either clean these up and make it look like a quatra valve or continue the anniversary because it's the most sorted kach out there and therefore it should actually be one of the favorite cuz it's one of the best to drive now this sort finished the last one is built in 1990 and then another sea change happened at Lamborghini which were get to next and here we are we get to the Lamborghini diabolo big changes here engine Grew From 5.2 in the contrast of 5.7 L here horsepower 500 horsepower and it's actually a bigger car all together again the safety regulations were coming in the contast you got to remember was actually arrived in 71 shown in concept form first customer 74 so it had lived a long life but this was their new sports car this was Lamborghini's future and it it's it's one of the big changes with it obviously it's longer it's a bit wider it's quite a lot heavier it hasn't got that delicacy in the chassis that the Countach had but it added as we'll see in later iterations it it went on and came a pretty special car really dramatic forward cabin design the sloping uh 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 big dashed binnacle you can almost have to peer over it when you have a look inside really heavy clutch as well um quite a brutish car it was I really loved the design of it but it was it was quite hard work to drive this but they had lotss of things up the sleeve was we'll get to we have a 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 Lamborghini introduced to harness all that horsepower generated from the 5.7 L engine they also made some other changes they put power steering on and revised the dash set the dash lower but there's a really exciting car they had in the wings the se30 and that comes next another anniversary model of the se30 30 years of lambini now and they knew that the diabo was suffering a bit because it was quite heavy it was the one thing over the cont it gained about 200 kilos or there about so this was their attempt to make a lighter weight diabo and it's a pretty they it's pretty extreme really they did away for example the electric windows are gone all you got was these little tiny electrics here just plastic windows here that's all you got ventilation air conditioning went it went back to two wheel drive no power steering and uh the engine was increased to 530 horsepower so a real hardcore sort of race car this car in 28 we 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 up to close to 595 horsepower from the 5.7 L engine so very extreme car indeed I this is pretty mental this one I haven't seen any Jas here but perhaps we'll 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 Diablo arrives this is the Diablo SV and they again had a 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 L engine 57 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 M 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 for the cabin and I have to say this is still a sleeper in the classified it's my tip for the top diabo SV superb driving machine two wheel drive a really good diabo an underrated well the late '90s was a really quite exciting time in Lamborghini's history because in '98 VW bought Lamborghini and they really started invest in the brand and also the Diablo had another sort of midlife reshape it had these new lights having popup lights it actually got these lights it 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 SVS made is how you recognize these lights but straight after this a really exciting Diablo arrived 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 can see it's completely different the front this sort of section here so it really feeds the radiator in the front but the big change here the engine grows from 5.7 L to 6 L 575 horsepower carbon and everything they really trying to lighten this car they only produced 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 and the GT in 99 came this this is it came arrived in 2000 this is the 6 l diabo so it gets the same 6 lit engine as we saw in the GT introducing the GT slightly down tuned to 550 horsepower four four-wheel drive is but it's just the influence of VW Audi they're really up in the quality of Lamborghini and this one really surprised us when we first drove this car this was a very polished diabo and today are very sought after and it's dead easy to understand why cuz it sort of looks super clean but really does drive very nicely so after the 6 L Diablo comes a big change there's a new designer in at Lamborghini Luke davolt and a brand new look for Lamborghini and here we are the arrival of the mercil Aro a completely reskinned diabo a really good design Luke donoval did the design and when you think there's nothing really different Under the Skin I think it looks so it looks terrific CU it looks so different to the Diablo but looks modern and fresh and definitely Lamborghini Luke dunelt said to me that he was teased by Valentino he said oh do you like he asked Valentino you like the design and he came back he says it's the Mechanicals that matter on a on a Lamborghini you just designed the engine cover and so sort a slight put down but I think it a great design I'll show you some of the key sort of design features that made this car look so different to the Diablo first of all you have the projector headlights at the front the rear this sort of very clean sweep and this huge intake coming in at bottom there with a oil cooler behind it sort of subtle badging and this was air intakes that sort of came rose up and went down again just much tidier around the back later additions like this one became optional to have glass over the engine to expose the engine the engine was grew again 6.2 L 575 horsepower big difference this car but a really great looking car just a thoroughly sorted modern design in 2004 they did a roster version the other thing that was important on this one introduce the paddle shift so you have a manual or paddle shift mercil Argo and this went on to 2004 when they did a mid 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 mercil ARA has its major facelift and we get to this the lp 640 and a really exciting car I thought gain the the design moved on you can Rec instantly recognizable by a giant exhaust at the rear I discover it's like a rabbit hole 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 seill here and then this big upgrade gets its name 640 it's 640 PS so 635 horsepower thereabouts really quick car still four-wheel drive and just also at the front it's more aerodynamic at the front more aggressive at the front I think it's a great looking car this one but we go on to one more special edition after this that's the crowning glory of the mercil Argo and it's over there and then we arrive in 2009 and Lamborghini Wows us again with the lp 674 SV what a crazy Nutter machine this one is 6.5 L again but 670 horsepower lightened as carbon fire Here There and Everywhere on this these monster rear wing it's optional actually different treatment on the rear over the engine massive Scoops at the front I mean just a wild looking machine Lamborghini at its best and still today this is I think is a very collectible car and people who own them have just absolutely adored them so the 670 is the end of the line of the mercel Lago but what a way to go out but when we see what happens next that's pretty special too a new chapter for Lamborghini the Aventador arrived brand new from head to toe all carbon construction 6.5 L engine 700 horsepower four-wheel drive and the design as wild as we just love from Lamborghini I think it's the most dramatic design you 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 and I think it's been great fun to go around this car park while while this 50th anniversary is on to see every single iteration of the V12 Lamborghini you've come all the way from the 350 GT to the Aventador that's Lamborghini's history in a not sure how much I've tried to wrap it up as tight as I can and now it's time for a beer

Channel: Harry's garage

Views: 772,329

Keywords: Lamborghini V12, Lamborghini (Automobile Company), V12 Engine (Piston Configuration), Harry Metcalfe, evo magazine

Id: 4h8y9Fzzn9k

Length: 24min 6sec (1446 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 14 2014