A TALE OF TWO BULLS: LAMBORGHINI LM002 AND URUS
STORY | Hans Wurl
PHOTOGRAPHY | Daniel Piker
To some degree, all Lamborghinis are ridiculous. Owning one is like having your own exotic cat. Your friends all think it’s amazing, but there will certainly be some drama behind the scenes, and there is a pretty decent chance that you might get bit once in a while. For many, the allure of the cars from Sant ’Agata, Italy is simply too strong to resist, and the 57-year survival of what is possibly the most exotic of Italy’s automakers has often hung in the balance.
Ferruccio Lamborghini was an Italian industrialist who began producing farming equipment in 1948. After owning various cars from Maserati and Ferrari, he felt that he could produce a superior product, and founded Automobili Lamborghini in 1963. While the company’s initial 350GT and 400GT 2+2 offerings were beautiful automobiles, it wasn’t until the debut of the Miura in 1966 that Lamborghinis became universal objects of desire.
The Marcello Gandini-designed Miura was a watershed moment in sports car design. It combined a transverse mid-mounted V12 engine with voluptuous bodywork unlike anything the world had ever seen, and it was immediately lauded as an engineering and styling breakthrough. Somewhat more pedestrian models followed, including the Espada, Islero, Jarama, and Urraco. While these might not have lived up to the Miura’s promise of design and performance, their more pedestrian specification compared well to cars in their class.
In 1974, a second Gandini-designed model would again thrust Lamborghini into the global spotlight. The incomparable Countach was an impossibly sleek and angular masterpiece powered by a new, now longitudinally mounted, V12 engine. The car would go on to grace the wall of car-crazy kids across the world and became the blueprint for Lamborghinis built for decades to come.
In 1977 Lamborghini made the unusual decision to contract with U.S.-based firm Mobile Technology International to build a prototype off-road vehicle to compete for military contracts. The vehicle was called the Cheetah, and only one example was built. The design utilized a mid-mounted 5.9-liter Chrysler, which created unusual handling dynamics. AM General was awarded the contract by the U.S. military for their HUMVEE, and the Cheetah endeavor was scrapped. The idea of an off-road Lamborghini was far from dead, however, and an arm of the company named Lamborghini Militaria was formed.
Another mid-engined prototype was built and named LM001, which debuted alongside the Jalpa at the 1981 Geneva Motor Show. Despite its more developed platform and change to an AMC V8 engine, the design was abandoned. The following year brought yet another concept named LMA002; now front-engined and powered by the V12 out of the Countach. The Saudi military awarded Lamborghini a contract for 500 to 1,000 vehicles, and the company expanded their workforce by 30% to meet the demand. Unfortunately, the contract never materialized, forcing Lamborghini to look for new outlets for its design and recoup the significant investments it had made.
Pivoting to the civilian market, Lamborghini debuted the LM002 at Brussels in 1986. Unfortunately dubbed the “Rambo Lambo” by the press, the production version utilized the V12 straight from the Countach, coupled to a five-speed manual gearbox and two-speed transfer case that offered low range. Earlier variants were fitted with six two-barrel Weber carburetors, while later models featured Bosch fuel injection. The interior was trimmed in the same fine Italian leather used in the Countach, and offered power windows and locks, air-conditioning, and a stereo system, among other amenities. Pirelli supplied two different versions of Scorpion tires for the new model, both utilizing run-flat capability and Kevlar-reinforced carcasses.
A total of 328 LM002s were built between 1986 and 1993, with approximately 50 believed sold new in the U.S. The LM002 has remained an enigmatic part of the collector car landscape for years, and until somewhat recently could be purchased at prices that made them extraordinary value. As those of us that grew up in the 1980s have come of age, interesting vehicles of this era have seen massive growth in popularity. While rare, the only off-road Lamborghini can usually be sourced without much difficulty, and one should expect to pay between $225,000 and $275,000 for a good example that has seen regular care.
OUR SUBJECT VEHICLES
The Lamborghinis gracing our pages offer a wonderful dichotomy, and demonstrate how far Lamborghini has come (or gone?) under their ownership by Audi AG, who bought the Italian firm in 1999. Depending on your proclivities, the differences between the LM002 and the Urus show advancement or regression, but you can be very certain that they do not share the same mission.
Upon receiving an offer to come and drive an LM002, one mustn’t hesitate, and so it was with much haste that I travelled to visit the collection put together by the local founder of eGarage. The most striking quality of the LM002 for me in the past was again apparent on this visit, and that is when you hear it fire up, you almost instinctively look around for the Countach that must be making that incredible noise. It simply makes no sense that those snarls and pops are coming from this 6,000-pound behemoth.
Entering this black, carbureted 1987 LM002 brings aural sensations that can only be offered by vintage Italian machinery. The smell itself is enough to take you to places that have nothing to do with climbing dunes and traversing rivers, and that is only further reinforced when you feel the tight sport seats, that feel straight out of the Countach. Seriously, what a wonderfully weird machine this is! The view out the windshield is a big part of what makes many of the world’s greatest cars special, and there is certainly no disappointment here, with bulges and vents framing the lower part of the incredible scene ahead.
This is a truck, make no doubt, and a heavy one at that, but the competence of the design is apparent once you are underway. Prowling the wet backroads, the clutch is heavy, the shifter is notchy, the throttle is hesitant, but the drive is amazing. All controls are direct, and the ride is better than you might have expected, likely due to the massive Pirelli Scorpions, which, by the way, are no longer available. Purpose-built machines have their quirks, and if you want an experience that takes you and your skill level out of the equation, look elsewhere, like maybe a Urus?
Is a Urus a real Lamborghini? Of course it is. If anything, it may be as much of a departure from a Huracan or Aventador as the LM002 was from the Countach. Like the LM002, which was born from a program that was necessary for Lamborghini to diversify and make money, the Urus fills a need as Lamborghini transitions from a niche and specialty car manufacturer to a volume and lifestyle brand, however small.
As with any Lamborghini, the Urus is polarizing, with many calling it an overpriced Audi (it shares its platform with the Q8), while others point out that it is arguably the ultimate SUV. With mind-bending performance and eye-popping styling, Lamborghini has found its way to a sales volume leader that is true to the brand’s ethos as the place to find something that simply isn’t available anywhere else.
Interestingly, you could buy either of these vehicles for roughly the same amount of money, but they couldn’t be more different. And I somehow doubt that there are many owners of one that would pine for the other, but that is the interesting part of the evolution of automotive marques. Lamborghini has survived despite historically limited volume, a sporadic dealer network and quality issues. Now that they build world-class, reliable cars that have warranties and can be driven by anyone who can afford them without much penalty, have they lost some allure? As they say, numbers don’t lie, and in 2019 alone Lamborghini sold 5,000 examples of the Urus, which almost equaled their sales total for all models in 2018. If this is what it takes for a marque like Lamborghini to survive, I say bring it on.