Monday, December 18, 2006

The Forgettable Lamborghinis

From the late 1960s to the mid 80s, Lamborghini gave the public more than just the Countach and Miura. No. Sant’Agata gave us these six ugly bastards. To say that it takes an acquired taste to appreciate these automobiles is an understatement. I rank these cars from ugly to ugliest, as follows:

1. Islero. This one borders on halfway decent. It is essentially a re-skinned 400GT. Although it is bland, it does have a hint of elegance. Don’t worry, folks, it gets much worse than this.

2. (Tied) Jalpa. An updated version of the Silhouette (see #4, infra), the Jalpa looks like an uninspired drawing of an anonymous mid-engined sports car created by a kid serving detention. It has absolutely no visual cues to distinguish it from an overused chalkboard eraser.


2. (Tied) Urraco. "Entry-level exotic" is an oxymoron. The Urraco was meant to compete with the Maserati Merak, another member of the Italian exotica Hall of Shame. To make matters worse, the suffocated version of the Urraco bound for Stateside only had 180 horses.

4. Silhouette. This car has more excessive body cladding than a mid-90s Pontiac sales lot. It no doubt inspired a generation of young, underemployed men in Daly City, California, and Staines, England, to add ludicrous body kits to their Honda Civics and Vauxhall Novas.

5. Jarama. Bertone, the Jarama’s stylist, admitted that the car’s design was deliberately unspectacular, even mediocre. Admitting the problem is the first step to recovery. This car needs serious help.


6. Espada. Oh, the humanity. This turd on wheels looks hideous from every conceivable angle. That it was Lamborghini’s best seller for many years is incredible. What a mess!

CKY

Special thanks to http://www.lamborghiniregistry.com/ for the photos.

4 comments:

Alan said...

The Islero is quite elegant and pretty in an early 60's Italian design kind of way, pictures betray it.

The Jarama is cool just because of it's wild proportions, but I do agree it's not classically pretty.

The rest I agree 100% with.

donek said...

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And breathtaking cars don't have to be beautiful. I'd still love an Espada.

Alan said...

Forgot to mention the Islero was Ferruccio's favorite.

Maxichamp said...

@Alan: In the six years since I wrote this, I've grown fond of the Islero and the Espada.