The new Lamborghini, which had been only known by its factory codename L147, was unveiled during an awesome show at the foot of the Etna volcano on Sicily, infront of a select group of about 200 people who had been flown to Sicily the day before to participate in the most impressive release of any Lamborghini model ever.

On a closed section of road on the Northern face of the Etna an entire stage was built for a special, 45 minutes show that would present the L147 to this small group of journalists, Lamborghini dealers, all-time owners, VIP's and celebrities, Prince Albert from Monaco was actually invited, but unfortunately couldn't make it.

At 10pm on Friday evening, the guests were driven to this area at a height of 1500m, it was very cold and windy, but still the stunning event would show the new Lamborghini emerging from the earth. The show used the 'Seven Mortal Sins' as a theme and featured music composed especially for the occasion, a series of dancers symbolized these 'Sins' while a 4min30 introduction movie of the new Murciélago was projected on a giant screen, special lightning and thundering sound effects were combined with artificial lava streams and smoke effects.

At the end of the show, a brand new, black metallic Lamborghini drove by the audience at 90 Km/h while the giant screen showed the name, 'Murciélago', an extreme name for an extreme car, the latest Lamborghini model, for the first time under the mighty Audi wings. Two other cars joined the festivities, another black one and a yellow one, the cars would be shipped to Frankfurt on Saturday morning to be shown to the general public.

At 9am on Saturday, this group of people flew back to Sant'Agata to take part of the press conference held at the factory during the afternoon.

Meanwhile, Automobili Lamborghini SpA had organized a massive event to which they had invited just about anybody who actually owned a Lamborghini or was connected to an authorized Lamborghini club.

Lamborghini enthusiasts from all over the world gathered in Sant'Agata Bologna by Saturday evening, the official presentation would be held around seven in the evening, but from five o'clock you were allowed to visit the renovated factory. The entire factory was being rebuilt and modified during the last months, and it was closed to all visitors during this time, it was really great to once again be able to take a look at the assembly lines, who were now producing the Murciélago's, chassisnumber 12031 was the first one on the line, which probably means that about 30 pre-production demo units had been built by then ...

Apparently the production of the Murciélago began immediately after the last Diablo 6.0 SE's were built, on the same assembly line, no time was lost inbetween, some of the last finished Diablo's were still inside the assembly hall, while the two last SE's were in various levels of finishing, an Oro Elios one and the very last Marrone Eklipsis Diablo, just after those the Murciélago number 12031 was being finished for the first lucky customer ..

Hundreds of people were present for the introduction of the new model, and several came in their very own Lamborghini, a total of nearly 200 cars that once came from this very factory were present, including some very early 350 GT's and Islero's, naturally the Espada, Urraco, Miura and Countach models were present too, together with the V8 powered models and the massive LM002 off-road vehicle.

A large collection of Diablo's were also brought to this event, some of the early models and several of the latest 6.0 Liter types, while several tuned specials were also seen, like the magnificent Affolter GTR's, both in Roadster and closed form. The parking lot at the factory was actually a real timeline, just about every model once built here was present and could be admired by fellow owners and fans from all over the world.

During the renovation of the factory, they included a real museum inside the factory buildings, here we could admire the very first 350 GTV prototype which was on loan from ITS Japanese owner, also one of the early LP400 prototypes was shown next to the very last 25th Anniversary Countach ever built. Other milestones in the Lamborghini history like the stunning Miura SV, the Espada, the Silhouette and the 350 GT were naturally also presented along with several of the Formula One cars and the championship winning off-shore powerboats.

But the best was still to come, towards 7 pm all guests were asked to come to a special section of the factory wHere the brand new Murciélago would be unveiled, under the eyes of hundreds of people, after being introduced by Guiseppe Greco himself, a stunning 'Ithaka Verde' Murciélago was driven on stage under the thundering sound of the band playing 'Born to be Wild'. At the same time two other Murciélago's were unveiled in the entry hall of the factory, a stunning yellow metallic one and an intimidating black metallic one.

After the introduction festivities, a buffet was served for all the invited people, while some could get a closer look at the new models on display, others went into the little shop at the factory and bought some hard to get Lamborghini automobilia, like the brand new limited edition scale model of the Murciélago, a production run of only 620 units built by bBurago for Automobili Lamborghini SpA.

To end the night, a stunning firework was launched at the factory, an enormous amount of impressive effects were created in the nightly sky, while the Murciélago name was being displayed in fire ...

On Sunday morning, A green metallic Murciélago was taken into Bologna, to have it shown to the public on the Piazza Maggiore, surrounded by several of the Lamborghini's that were at the factory, truly a one of a kind event that was able to gather just about every single Lamborghini model ever built.

article written by Mark Smeyers, President, LamboCars.com

03.10.2002  NEW MODELS: LAMBORGHINI MURCIELAGO
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