Lamborghini had its best sales year ever in 2023, moving over 10,000 units. It got there by selling SUVs, which made up almost two-thirds of overall sales. Heading into 2025, Lamborghini plans to double down on this strategy, introducing an electrified version of the Urus SUV and a new GT crossover in the upcoming Lanzador.
Its strategy isn’t a secret. Speaking with Andrea Baldi, CEO of Automobili Lamborghini Americas at the Urus SE reveal in Toronto this spring, I was told that the push at Lamborghini is to create a more accessible brand. And no, that doesn’t mean lowering the price. It means making more cars that anyone with a spare $500,000 burning a hole in their pocket can drive any day of the year.
This isn’t a new concept for Lamborghini. For decades, the company has sought to create cash cows to supplement its V12 halo loss leaders. The Espada, Islero, Jarama, and Urraco are all cars you’ve probably never heard of, but they were all attempts by the Italian nameplate to create a comfortable GT cruiser.
Later, baby supercars like the Silhouette and Jalpa would act as predecessors to the Gallardo, which, prior to the Urus, was the best-selling Lamborghini of all time, offering superior livability compared to its V12-powered big brothers.
Heck, if the persisting rumor (borderline legend at this point) is to be believed, the very first Lamborghini, the 350 GT, was made almost exclusively to be an easier car to drive and live with than the Ferrari 250.
"I have bought some of the most famous gran turismo cars,” Ferruccio Lamborghini is quoted as saying. "And in each of these magnificent machines, I have found some faults. Too hot, or uncomfortable, or not sufficiently fast, or not perfectly finished. Now I want to make a GT car without faults … a perfect car."
With all due respect to Sig. Lamborghini, that quote is pure irony. Because Lamborghini is not known for building “perfect cars” without faults. It’s known for building absolutely bonkers, fire-spitting spaceships that are infamously difficult to do anything with except stare at.
Lamborghini might be known for making better bedroom wall posters than cars. And that's how most of us have interacted with the brand in our lifetimes – through posters on our bedroom walls.
Gen-X, of course, had the Countach. But if you remember sweating the choice between Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle, or the piercing sting of Aerith’s untimely demise (spoilers), then you didn’t have a Countach on your bedroom wall poster during your most cherished video game experiences. You had a Diablo.
I had a poster of a Diablo in my room. This exact poster, which is an arguable contender for “Most ‘90s Image of All Time.”
This 1998 Lamborghini Diablo VT Roadster, currently offered for sale on AutoTrader through Automobiles Etcetera in Mt. Royal, Que., looks nothing like my bedroom poster. But I’ll bet somebody had a Rosso red one on their wall.
Originally sold in February 1998 in Florida and optioned with a “Glacier” interior, this example is one of only 466 VT Roadsters ever built and is more or less the last model produced before Audi purchased the company in September 1998.
With its 530-horsepower 5.7-litre V12, gated six-speed manual transmission, ergonomic absurdities, and seeming disregard for comfort or safety, this is exactly what a Lamborghini should be for some drivers. All passion. No compromises. If you can’t swim, stay out of the pool.
Adhering to the puritan’s desire for the last non-Audi V12 Lambo, Automobiles Etcetera did some un-modifying of the car after taking possession last year, returning it to its factory original equipment.
Certainly, the pre-German Diablos have a certain analogue quality. The design feels unrestricted by anything other than imagination and Lamborghini’s stated goal of reaching a 325 km/h (200 mph) top speed.
However, even with a product as infamously unlivable, unrefined, analogue, and visceral as the Diablo, Lamborghini was already starting to think that maybe not everyone who could afford one of these cars could necessarily control one. Thus, the VT moniker (for Viscous Traction) was coined for the new all-wheel-drive system, which made massive strides in driver control.
In fact, when Car and Driver first tested the Diablo VT in 1994, it was somewhat let down by how tame and buttoned up the new AWD system made the raging bull. It even went so far as to assert that the car couldn’t hang with Mazda’s RX-7. Seriously.
Still, there is an undeniable quality to a Diablo that transports you right back to the ‘90s. This car practically demands you drive it wearing an “Austin 3:16” t-shirt.
It’s odd to finally start counting yourself amongst a generation that has nostalgia, whose cultural phenomenons are now documented as history. You don’t want to wag your finger at a teenager and say, “Things were better in my day.”
But I just can’t help but disassociate with the Fortnite kids who aspire to a Lamborghini SUV. Our video games had emotional connections, and so did our cars. They were better. The Diablo was better. Sorry, not sorry (that’s Millennial slang for “no cap”).
And I think it’s great that Lamborghini is ensuring the future of its halo hypercars by finally figuring out how to sell everyday vehicles to a segment of people who are perfectly comfortable – even, eager – to pay over twice the MSRP of a fully loaded Porsche Cayenne.
I’m desperately hoping there’s a ‘90s kid out there with fat stacks burning a hole in their pocket who damns the torpedoes and buys this Diablo instead of the Urus they’ve been shopping for.
Do it for Cloud, Charizard, and Stone Cold.
