Lamborghini has announced plans for a fourth model line to go on sale in the second half of this decade. The unnamed car will be an electric vehicle, and a key part of Lamborghini’s program of electrification that will see €50 billion ($61 billion for anyone counting exchange rates) invested in new technology over a four year period.
Lamborghini has already dipped a toe in hybrid waters with the limited edition Sian, but its first series production hybrid lands in 2023, and by 2024 the whole fleet will be hybridised. And then, in the second half of the decade, we get Lamborghini’s first EV. But other than the official confirmation that it’s coming, Lamborghini hasn’t divulged any details.
Related: Charging Bull: Lamborghini Outlines Electrification Strategy, Readies EV Fourth Model Line for 2025+
Lamborghini’s limited edition Sian Roadster
So what kind of car do you think Lamborghini should build?
The company is best known for its supercars, so it might be easy to assume the new car will be a 2000 hp hypercar in the mould of the Lotus Evija or Rimac C_Two. And given that Lamborghini’s VW Group sister company Porsche owns a chunky 24 per cent stake in Rimac, it’s possible that both Porsche and Lamborghini might gain access to the Croatian EV specialist’s technology to build its own hypercar.
But the car hidden underneath a sheet pictured on screen during Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann’s fourth model announcement looked more like a low-slung GT than a supercar, and back in December 2019, Winkelmann’s predecessor, Stefano Domenicali, told Carscoops that any fourth model would likely be “a 2+2 GT car – that’s a segment where we are not present but some other competitors are. That’s the only extension I can see making sense.”
So, hypercar, GT, a smaller SUV, or something else entirely: what kind of car do you think Lamborghini should build for its fourth model line? We dug through Lamborghini’s back catalogue of concept cars and limited edition supercars to give you some inspiration.
2008 Estoque
You’ve heard of super-sedans, well the Estoque is a hyper-sedan, or it would have been if the financial crisis of the late 2000s hadn’t scuppered Lambo’s plans to put the front-mounted V10-powered four-door into production.
2014 Asterion LPI910-4
Here’s proof that Lamborghini’s hybrid ambitions go way back. The mid-engined Asterion concept was powered by a mid-mounted V10, just like the Gallardo and Huracan, but was conceived as more of a GT. Two electric motors sent 296 hp to the front axle, adding to the gasoline engine’s 602 hp, and gave an electric-only range of 31 miles.
2013 Egoista
Looking like something the bad guys might fly in a Battlestar Galactica reboot, the single-seat Egoista was unveiled as part of Lamborghini’s 50th anniversary celebrations back in 2013. That very pedestrian-unfriendly front end is meant to look like a charging bull with its horns pointing forward.
1967 Marzal
The Marzal’s hexagon motifs are still a key part of Lamborghini’s design language to this day, and the basic shape would later inspire the Espada GT. But it’s very likely the Marzal is also helping inspire Lamborghini’s current team as it plans its fourth model line.
2012 Urus
Lamborghini showed the Urus as a concept in 2012, and unveiled the production car five years later. Currently, there’s only one engine, a turbocharged gasoline V8, but that’ll be joined by a PHEV version by 2024. We already know that Porsche is working on a fully-electric Macan though, so Lamborghini could conceivably use that base to create a battery-powered little brother to the Urus.
2017 Terzo Millennio
Developed in conjunction with the boffins at MIT, the Terzo Millennio (Italian for Third Millennium) used high capacity supercapacitors to store energy that could be meted out to each of the car’s four hub motors. The concept was only ever a blue-sky project, but the supercapacitor tech did find its way into the Sian.
1978 Frua Faena
A four-door Lamborghini wagon with a front-mounted V12 and manual gearbox? There’s zero chance of Lamborghini adopting that configuration for its fourth model, but it’s fun to look at this Espada-based one-off created by coachbuilder Frua and let your imagination run wild.
2006 Miura
Retro cars were everywhere in the late 1990s and early 2000s and Lamborghini jumped on the bandwagon to celebrate the original Miura, Lamborghini’s first mid-engined car, and arguably the first modern supercar. It was considered for production, but Lamborghini decided it should only ever respect the past, and not be a slave to it.
2013 Veneno
It might look some crazy concept, but Lamborghini built five Veneno coupes and nine roadsters, charging customers around $4m each. Though based on the Aventador’s carbon chassis, the Veneno’s styling was much wilder, its huge dorsal fin giving it the look of a Le Mans prototype.
2019 Huracan Sterrato
Imagine if you could combine Lamborghini’s mid-engined supercar heritage with the current obsession for crossovers. Lamborghini did exactly that with the Sterrato concept, which gained 47mm of extra ride height compared with a regular Huracan, higher-profile tires and bolt-on wheelarch extensions.