As one of the most famous luxury brands in the world today, it’s hard to imagine that Lamborghini was ever concerned about creating affordable cars, but that’s exactly what this rare Lamborghini Urraco was created for back in the early ’70s. One such example of the Lamborghini Urraco has just come up for sale in Germany, made even more special by the fact that it was a pre-production example and contains an unusual engine.
Back in the golden design decades of the 1970s and ’80s, Lamborghini looked to offer a more accessible option in its line-up to compete with the comparatively affordable Ferrari Dino and Giorgetto Giugiaro-designed Maserati Merak. Unfortunately, for all three Italian automakers, none of these relatively affordable options was particularly commercially successful, with just 791 examples of the Lamborghini Urraco ever to leave the factory and Maserati only producing 1,830 cars with the Merak badge, a factor which has made them all the more collectible today.
Designed by Marcello Gandini, the Italian designer responsible for the Lamborghini Countach, prototypes of the Lamborghini Diablo and even the Ferrari Dino 308 GT4. The Lamborghini Urraco was known as the “Little Bull” because of its unusual V8 engine that departed from the typical V12-powered cars from Lamborghini, which was done to make the Urraco more affordable than its Countach and Miura siblings.
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The Lamborghini Urraco that’s up for sale is a 1972 pre-production example (number 19, to be exact) with a well-loved 61,400kms on the clock, despite sitting in a garage from 1994 until it was purchased by an Italian car collector in 2014. It was then that the vehicle received a painstaking restoration to return it to as close to original condition as possible, which sees the car featuring an entirely original interior and the original paint colour (which has been repainted).
This special piece of Raging Bull history is currently up for sale in Germany, offered by Weekend Heros for €105,000 (AU$162,781). This might be a little more than the original US$22,500 (AU$33,107) when they were first offered in 1973, but for such a rare car there will no doubt be a Lamborghini collector out there more than happy to open their wallet.
