When it was unveiled at the Paris Motor Show in 2008, many were swept away by the Lamborghini Estoque. Sadly, it never materialized into a production car.
The Estoque took the aluminum spaceframe from an Audi A8 and added the Lamborghini Gallardo‘s 556 hp (563 PS/414 kW) V10, running it all to all four wheels via a 7-speed dual-clutch transmission. All in, it was supposed to be able to achieve a top speed of 190 mph (305 km/h).
Despite its good looks (I’m not sure if I’m as enamored of it as Mike Fernie here, but it’s certainly better looking than the original Porsche Panamera that came out at around about the same time), the project never came to fruition.
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“After being revealed at the 2008 Paris Motor Show to massive praise from the media, it turned out that the VW Board wasn’t too convinced about the feasibility of this project, preferring the Porsche Panamera as a four-seater supercar,” he says.
The Estoque was shelved in 2009 but brought back in 2010 when Lamborghini’s sales started suffering. The car was supposed to hit the road by 2012, with a preproduction model built to comply with crash regulations and pedestrian protection laws.
Again, though, the company simply lost funding for the project from the higher-ups, with Stefan Winkelmann (who was CEO at the time) saying that the Estoque only ever received feasibility funding from VW and nothing more. That turned out to be the final nail in its coffin.
The idea of a four-door, front-engine Lamborghini did live on, though, in the Urus, a name that had been kicking around ever since 2008 and the earliest days of the Estoque concept. With buyers going crazy over SUVs, the Urus was a massive success in terms of sales, so we guess Lamborghini’s decision was the right one. Can’t help but wonder “what if”, though…