This
feature appears in Auto Italia - Issue 119 |
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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.
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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Like a spaceship parked outside
Tescos, the sight of a Lamborghini Espada fighting
its way through West London is somewhat surreal. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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'. |
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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
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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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website:
www.auto-italia.co.uk |
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