Thus far, I haven’t had much luck finding classic Lamborghinis. I’d love to see a Miura, a 400 GT, or an Espada – that last one, in particular, is high on my bucket list. The Urraco was never on my radar, though. It should have been, because it’s a pretty fantastic-looking GT. Perfect to kick off a ‘70s Italian Coupé Week, no?
Ferrucio Lamborghini famously had Ferrari in his sights when he branched out into sports cars in the mid-‘60s, and he did not hold back. With the 350/400 GT, the Miura and the Espada, he filled out the supercar niches in record time – a front-engined 2+2, a mid-engined two-seater and a large four-seater. But Ferrari responded with the Dino, a smaller and more affordable car that could be produced in higher volumes. Lamborghini could not let that go unchallenged.
At the 1970 Turin Motor Show, Bertone displayed a new mid-engined Lambo that seemed a lot smaller than anything the marque had attempted up to that point. There were rumours of a V6 or a V8, well under the 3-litre mark. It would take a little time to get production going, though: public interest was deemed satisfactory, but this completely new car and engine required a fair amount of preparation before being let out on the autostrade.
Two years later, in the fall of 1972, the baby Lambo was deemed ready for prime time. In the interim, it had changed quite a bit – Marcello Gandini had tinkered with the design, as the realities of production compelled certain decisions to be made.
On the positive side, Gandini reworked the rear air intakes in a very clever and artful way. The design brief also called for a 2+2 configuration – a far from ideal concept when the engine is supposed to be within the wheelbase. The rear seats, as we shall see, are more vestigial than anything else, but at least the car’s profile was pretty well balanced. The Dino 308 GT4 and the Ferrari Mondial would not be as successful in this regard.
The louvres on the back had become something of a Lamborghini feature, ever since Gandini had put them there on the Miura. Nice, clean rear end.
The heart of the beast, at least initially, was a 2.5 litre V8 with four carbs and only one cam per cylinder bank, providing 220hp. For the domestic market, Lamborghini also proposed a 182hp 2-litre version in 1975-77 – the smallest engine the marque ever produced.
There were a lot of teething troubles with the Urraco. The 1972 launch date saw an initial batch of cars released and irate clients calling back very soon after. Timing belts were a source of many problems and the car just did not perform that well. Plus, the interior was not up to the car’s price. It was a turbulent time in Italy in general and at Lamborghini in particular, as the founder was being forced to sell 51% of his stake in the business to keep the lights on at Sant’Agata Bolognese.
A revised version, the Urraco S, was rushed out mid-1973, addressing most of the initial issues, but arrived right during the Yom Kippur War and the First Oil Shock that ensued. At least, that was an external problem, not one of the carmaker’s own doing. But it did not help sales.
The interior certainly looks worthy of a ‘70s Italian supercar. I’m not sure how visible that impressive battery of gauges is for taller drivers, but the style and the interesting use of carpeting are definitely up there with the best of them. Keep-fit windows are a bit odd for a car of this class, but given the nature of Italian electrics, a safer bet.
The “rear seat,” ladies and gentlemen. A waste of leather, if you ask me.
I caught this car on two occasions – a sunny day, and an overcast one. The contrast in lighting makes for a very different ambiance. And I really like that dash, so I’ll just post both photos.
In 1975, Lamborghini introduced the LP300 variant to the range. The V8 was upped to 2996cc and got a new DOHC head. Said camshafts were chain-driven, too. Power went up to 265hp and the Urraco finally had the oomph one could expect from a Lambo, even one that professed to be on the smaller side.
The 3-litre became the only Urraco by 1977, but production was very limited. One key market had been neglected: the US of A. In 1974, Lamborghini did give it a shot, shackling their 2.5 litre V8 with emissions controls and slapping 5-mph bumperettes on Gandini’s handiwork. The resulting 175hp (!) load of bull was so out of its depth that the experience was ended after a mere 21 cars were shipped over, which took two years to sell.
Which means the only markets that Lamborghini were left with were Europe, the Middle-East and Japan. I don’t know if this one was bought here new – there is a fair chance it was. But no matter where you were, it took some serious coin to get one of these bovines from its pen. And that was the biggest issue with the Urraco: too damn expensive. Let’s illustrate with the British situation (because the price lists a lot easier to come by).
I purposefully set the bar at £6000 (i.e. quite high), because otherwise the likes of the Jaguar E-Type, the Triumph Stag or the MG B V8 would have made the table even more skewed. No matter how you look at it though, the Urraco was too expensive for this crowd. Ferrari, Maserati and Porsche were much more compelling performance-wise. And if you were after a more GT feel, the last Jensens and Citroën SMs were surely better value. For further reference, the price in the US (for a far less powerful car) in 1975 was $22,500…
Sales carried on until 1979, but the model had clearly missed its mark. Exact production numbers can vary according to sources, but the most credible one I’ve encountered was 791 units, comprising 66 Italy-only 2-litre cars, 205 later 3-litre types and 520 of the “regular” 2.5 litre ones like our CC.
But the Urraco experiment was not a complete failure: the car was reworked (and considerably uglified) as the two-seat open-topped Silhouette (1976-79, 53 units made), which itself was spun off as the 3.5 litre Jalpa (1981-88, 416 units made), so they did extract all they could from that chassis in a couple of decades. Turns out it was about 1200 cars’ worth. So much for high volume.
Well, if nothing else, this Urraco allowed me to write up my first classic Lamborghini. There are plenty of modern ones growling about the metropolis, and I found at least one that was worth reporting, though it’s really an Audi in drag (but then, that’s kind of what they’ve become). And then there was that Countach re-creation thing, which looks beautiful until you hear a Toyota V6 coming out of its exhaust pipes. This Urraco may only have a 2.5 litre V8, but it’s still a properly-bred little bull. A vealy nice one, even.
As I see it, the 1975 Pantera’s 175 mph was extraordinary, and as I got to drive a ’74 for a year, I know that it was good for that.
I’m amazed at how tight these are inside. Assuming that driver’s seat is set for someone of normal Japanese physique, how on earth would four Italians fit? No wonder later developments lost the rear ‘seats’. Achingly beautiful to look at though.
I’ve squeezed myself in the backseat of plenty of small cars (a Trabant back seat can fit two 6ft teenagers), but that looks like the most uncomfortable thing I can imagine. Hard to see why they bothered
I always liked the Urraco but never knew much about them and have definitely never seen one in the flesh. I’ll never forget the Top Gear special with the one included in the budget supercars with them playing Deep Purple Black Knight when it arrived, what a perfect song for this car in black.
It’s pretty sad what it later became in the Jalpa form, which looks like a cheap kit car to me. It sprouted all the visual bulges and wings of the Countach but unlike the Countach it actually made it less distinguishable. The Urraco’s original design to my eye is actually better fleshed out than the lp400 Countach, there’s not a bad angle on it, and even though it’s in a pseudo different class of car it actually bridges the gap between the Miura and LP400 almost perfectly, I see artifacts of both in it.
I never took in the interior until today, so yeah the back seats are vestigial (I never realized it even had them) but I absolutely love that dashboard and all that suede. I liked the Urraco up til now but I kind of love it now.
I’ve seen at least pictures of the Jalpa and always thought “what a monstrosity’, and so always wondered what the previous Urraco looked like. Much better! Thank you so much!
I guess maybe one could strap a car-seat into the back seat of one of these, and that’s about all it would have been good for, unless whomever was sitting in there didn’t have any legs – or maybe if one could adjust the front seats forward enough, maybe you could get a small kid in there. It would have been a fun family trip for a couple of adolescents – imagine getting dropped off to school in the Urraco!
A jaundiced and highly fictional period review of the Urraco can be found here:
https://driventowrite.com/2016/07/05/1975-lamborghini-urraco-3-0-road-test-archie-vicar/
I hope Paul N. doesn´t object to the cross-linkage. Remember to come back to CC when you´re done!
Love your stuff, Richard. Driven to Write is always on my radar when researching my posts — that review included.
Thanks very much indeed, kind of you to say! In return, I greatly appreciated your contributions here. I think the two sites are pretty complimentary which is agreeable, I think.
Yes, I’m a fan of DTW; you guys do a wonderful job. I don’t get there often enough, but when I do I always enjoy it.
One of the interesting things about that list is that, apart from the Urraco, the 3 least-expensive cars on that list were the 3 outright failures in the marketplace:
Alfa Romeo Montreal
Citroen SM
Maserati Merak
The Detomaso and the Jensen also didn’t make it out of the 1970’s, but that had more to do with factors external to the sales success of the cars themselves.
The other cars on the list, the BMW CS, the Mercedes 450SL, the Porche 911, the Bristol 411, the Dino (later 308), the Aston Martin V8, are amongst the most iconic models of each brand. Besides the price, the Urraco was in the arena with some pretty tough bulls.
Well, everything is relative. The SM sold almost 13,000 units in five and a half years. Small potatoes for a carmaker like Citorën, but pretty good for the type of car it was. Maserati made over 1800 Meraks — a lot better than the Urraco.
On the hand, Aston Martin almost died in 1974, that iconic V8 notwithstanding. They literally made no cars in calendar year 1975, from what I understand. As to the Bristol, it’s debatable how successful it was, as finding solid data about those is challenging but the number floating about is 287 units made between 1969 and 1975…
Oh, and De Tomaso carried on making a trickle of Panteras until the early ’90s.
The great Ghandini sounds like a moniker for a magician: the Muira tells us he could be just that.
But not all tricks succeed, and his Ferrari 308 shows how it is that even small movements of the hand can create failure, and others, in drawing the Urraco, greatness.
So close, and so far apart, from the same pen.
There were a number of issues with the Urraco, but by far the biggest one was the mistake of making it a 2+2, or trying to. Why? Ferrari learned this with the 308; the genuine sports car GTB became the iconic small Ferrari and the 2+2s were the largely failed outsiders.
A tighter, shorter Urraco might have had a fighting chance; or at least a better chance.
It was a sad story, watching this unfold in real time.