09.06.2006 AUTO ITALIA DRIVE THE LAMBORGHINI ESPADA ROUND WEST LONDON

This feature appears in Auto Italia - Issue 119


Like a spaceship parked outside Tescos, the sight of a Lamborghini Espada fighting its way through West London is somewhat surreal. While the van and taxi traffic edges its way forward in ever decreasing circles, the big V12 creates a forcefield of hydrocarbons around itself with each new blip of the throttle. Pedestrians are inadvertently asphyxiated as they cannot help but stare with open mouths while local radio stations are preparing news items based on sightings of a UFO on the Westway.

Well, it seems almost as long and wide and certainly has some incredible flat surfaces but even the Battlestar Galactica didn’t sound as meaty as this. Compared with the 12-cylinder Ferraris of the same period, the Lamborghini engine seems much more civilised with far less chatter from chains and valve gear. It chooses instead to use the exhaust system to project its voice, ranging from a deep menacing throb at idle, through a kind of American V8 roar when the throttles are opened and building to an Italian-only spine-chilling howl at the top end. It’s intoxicating stuff, as our audience found out, but it probably says as much for superior soundproofing and the aforementioned exhaust acoustics from installation in the Espada than any inherent civilisation of the motor – ask a Miura owner if his engine sounds similarly sophisticated!

But of course, it is easy to forget when you look at the outrageous exterior that the Espada was supposed to be a sensible four-seater Grand Tourer – indeed, the current owner of this car ‘sold’ it to his other half as such when the children arrived (a feat worthy of respect from half the population). The intention in its day was for it to complement the more overtly sporting cars in the range and also to maintain the momentum that Ferruccio Lamborghini’s new company had gained.

By 1966, while Lamborghini cars had already established themselves on the domestic market as credible alternatives to Ferrari or Maserati, it would be the presentation that year of the Miura that would really launch the company worldwide. Nobody could have predicted the enormous impact of this, the first mid-engined supercar, but it put Lamborghini under pressure for the first time. How do you follow that?

Lamborghini answered the question by commissioning a concept car from Bertone, known as the Marzal, and at the Geneva Salon almost exactly 12 months after the Miura had changed the world forever, the Marzal hoped to similarly challenge the established order. With its enormous glazed gull-wing doors, pearlescent white paint (a shade adopted even for the interior leatherwork) and an obsession with hexagonal shapes which spread from the rear bumper to the dashboard and everywhere in between, we could easily dismiss it today as a piece of naïve kitsch, like a set from Barbarella, but at the time LJK Setright said of the Marzal that it was ‘perhaps the most extravagant piece of virtuoso styling to have come out of Europe since the War’. 

The chief designer at Bertone at the time was the now legendary Marcello Gandini, who in a recent interview admitted that he preferred the overall title of designer than that of stylist (for which he is probably best known). For him, the real satisfaction has always come from the engineering creativity as much as the pure aesthetics and it shows in the Marzal. By taking an elongated Miura chassis and half a Miura engine mounted behind the rear axle line, the Marzal was able to seat four adults in comfort, with easy access through the aforementioned gull-wing doors. By-products of this were an incredibly low and wide frontal area, a distinctive beltline and a huge glasshouse. Visitors to Geneva may have been dazzled by the ‘space-age’ shapes and colours but the real evolution was behind the façade.

As a concept, Marzal did fulfil its role in foretelling the future but it did not work properly as a car. The Miura chassis was not rigid enough when elongated, the six-cylinder engine was woefully underpowered and the suspension did not have sufficient travel in the low front wheel arches. The motor-show-going public would have to wait another year for that.

During the interim months, Gandini and his team, working closely with Giampaolo Dallara at Lamborghini, developed the Marzal concept into a prototype for the Espada. The Miura frame was rejected in favour of a new sheet steel semi-monocoque with integral tubular chassis members and the already established running gear of the 400GT was fitted. This meant that the engine moved from the back to the front and re-gained its full compliment of 12 cylinders. Compromise had to be made in terms of the height of the frontal area but the engineers were helped by the fact that the Lamborghini V12 had always been able to use sidedraught carburettors instead of the more usual downdraught type for V engines. From its inception, the Giotto Bizzarrini-designed engine had featured inlet ports set in between the inlet and exhaust camshafts on each bank of cylinders rather than on the inward facing side of each head. The manifold naturally curled outwards to horizontal carburettors, decreasing the height of the engine by probably 10cm over contemporary Maserati or Ferrari V engines. It was a typical Bizzarrini touch from an engineer who appreciated as much the aerodynamic and gravitational dynamics of a ‘low’ engine as the gas-flow characteristics of such a design.

The Espada prototype retained an overall shape reminiscent of the Marzal, including tremendously ugly, over-size gull-wing doors, which ate into the roof space like those of a Ford GT40.
 

LAMBORGHINI ESPADA

The only other true four-seater GT car on offer from an Italian manufacturer at the time was the majestic Maserati Quattroporte but, in comparison, the Espada looked as though it was from a different planet.

LAMBORGHINI ESPADA

This particular example may confuse the anoraks as, although it is a Series 3, it has the earlier Series 2 wheels with knock-off spinners.

LAMBORGHINI ESPADA

Thanks go to the owner, Sean Gorvy, as well as to Lamborghini expert Colin Clarke (also a previous owner of this car) and to Rob Muller for his location advice.

LAMBORGHINI ESPADA

Like a spaceship parked outside Tescos, the sight of a Lamborghini Espada fighting its way through West London is somewhat surreal.

LAMBORGHINI ESPADA

Production commenced immediately after Geneva in March 1968, and 186 cars were built between then and November 1969 when the engine received a 25bhp upgrade to 350bhp. At the same time, the dashboard and interior were re-designed, constituting the introduction of the Series 2 version which lasted for 575 units and until November 1972, when the final dashboard and a change of wheel design among other details signalled the arrival of the third and last series.

LAMBORGHINI ESPADA

Compared with the 12-cylinder Ferraris of the same period, the Lamborghini engine seems much more civilised with far less chatter from chains and valve gear. It chooses instead to use the exhaust system to project its voice, ranging from a deep menacing throb at idle, through a kind of American V8 roar when the throttles are opened and building to an Italian-only spine-chilling howl at the top end.

LAMBORGHINI ESPADA

At the time LJK Setright said of the Marzal prototype that it was 'perhaps the most extravagant piece of virtuoso styling to have come out of Europe since the War'.


Thankfully, at the end of the day, the design team gave up on an obsession with ease of rear seat entry and the final prototype, with conventional doors and gold metal-flake paint, was presented at Geneva in March 1968. It says much for Gandini’s inherent talent and the greater simplicity of the era that even after this distillation process the result was still outrageous to look at from any angle. It was particularly in the use of glass that the Espada broke new ground. A larger glazed area was becoming more common but rarely had the rear windscreen been used without a frame as a tailgate, or the rear panel been glazed to increase rearward vision. Even the rear quarter windows were enlarged to the maximum possible size and hinged uniquely from the top rather than the leading edge. The low beltline was actually higher than that of the Marzal but still a striking design feature complete with integrated slats in the bonnet to reduce engine bay temperatures.

Nothing that had gone before had ever looked like this. The only other true four-seater GT car on offer from an Italian manufacturer at the time was the majestic Maserati Quattroporte but, in comparison, the Espada looked as though it was from a different planet. Production commenced immediately after Geneva in March 1968, and 186 cars were built between then and November 1969 when the engine received a 25bhp upgrade to 350bhp. At the same time, the dashboard and interior were re-designed, constituting the introduction of the Series 2 version which lasted for 575 units and until November 1972, when the final dashboard and a change of wheel design among other details signalled the arrival of the third and last series. 456 of the last series cars were built up to the end of 1978 when production was curtailed as Lamborghini entered a period of receivership, guilty as were so many of confusing the market with too many models, costing too much to build. Hence, when the oil crisis began, they could not contract fast enough to survive.

I was beginning to wonder about our own personal oil crisis as we squeezed through the traffic once more en route to Hyde Park. While the water temperature had been refreshingly stable for an Italian supercar, the prolonged idling was causing a little plug-fouling. Soon, however, a couple of runs on the quiet park roads allowed a little illegal throat clearing and all was well. In fact, for such a space-rocket, the Espada had demonstrated a surprisingly benign temperament. The pedals were heavy by 2006 standards, especially the throttle with its 12 separate butterflies to open, but the power-assisted ZF box (an option from Series 2 onwards) made light work of the steering. The driving position was good, the ride compliant from those chunky 70 profile tyres and the advantage of all that glass was real confidence when placing the car on the road. Contemporary road testers always concluded that what was a large car shrank around them‚ and I think this was the real reason. One could not hustle a Miura or a Countach in such a cool-handed way in traffic. And when the opportunity did present itself, the acceleration to light-speed was always available, in any gear, at any time.

I think it was Marcello Gandini’s great rival Giugiaro who said that anyone could design a supercar but that the real talent lay in the greater discipline of designing a practical family car. If so, then he must have nurtured a certain professional jealousy over the Espada. It was an outrageous piece of visual design, a perfect complement to the Miura and then the Countach and yet all the time a practical, easy-to-drive Grand Tourer with space for family and luggage. It really was the spaceship you could take to the supermarket.

Story by Andy Heywood / Photography by Michael Ward
 

This feature appears in Auto Italia, Issue 119, May-June 2006. Highlights of this month's issue of the world's leading Italian car magazine, which is now on sale, includes road tests of the new Alfa Romeo Brera and Maserati Quattroporte GT; long-distance journey with the Premier Padmini, Abarth Simca 1300 - the French connection; and fun at the seaside with the Ferrari F430 Spider. Call +44 (0) 1858 438817 for back issues  and  subscriptions.

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