Lamborghini LM002

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2026, as it turns out, is a year of much celebration at Lamborghini. It is, of course, the 60^th anniversary of Sant’Agata Bolognese’s seminal supercar, the astonishingly beautiful Miura whose unbelievable driving experience we detailed a few weeks ago. It’s also 50 years since the company unveiled its Urraco, which, even if it was a little less ‘welming, the Silhouette version was still a milestone in the company’s history.

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More importantly, this year also marks 40 years since the LM002 — the “Rambo Lambo” — was first displayed to a, frankly, disbelieving crowd at the 1986 Brussels auto show. Originally designed as a military vehicle — even more improbably, an American military vehicle — the monstrous was the genesis for the automotive segment every automaker considers essential to its success: the luxury sport brute.

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Its origins, however, are much more humble. Lamborghini, as I said, trying to win a contract with the American military for an off-road vehicle. And a pretty basic one at that. Oh, the first attempt was, in fact, rear-engined — Sant’Agata Bolognese having just bested arch-rival Ferrari in its revolutionary mid-engined Miura — which was a novel concept at the time, but, other than that, it was pretty much a standard, open-air dune buggy with a stiffer roll-cage and thicker roll bars than normal. And, as you can see from this somewhat amateurish video promoting the design of the prototype, it had little in common with the brutish LM002 that followed.

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In fact, its powertrain wasn’t even Lamborghini. Where the final product featured the much-menacing Countach’s V12, the Cheetah, as the ungainly beast was then called, was powered by a hand-me-down 190-horsepower, 5.9-litre V8 from Chrysler (remember, at that time, Lamborghini was owned by the American company).

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It got axed, depending on who’s telling the story, because America’s top generals insisted on a diesel powerplant which, of course, Lamborghini didn’t, and still doesn’t, produce or because the Cheetah was deemed to have copied another American-designed competitor called the FMC XR311.

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Undeterred, Lamborghini used the underlying knowledge gained and built a second prototype — the “002” of Lamborghini Militaria Antiores — that saw a more traditional layout, albeit writ large — and then, brilliantly mind you, decided what a real berm-basher needed was to have a 5.2-litre V12 stuffed into its engine bay.

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The rest is history. The company convinced Pirelli to build the biggest, baddest off-road truck tires — the legendary “BK” — in pneumatic history, wealthy oil sheiks decided this was the perfect sport brute for chasing their falcons round the desert and, low and behold, the legend of the Rambo Lambo was born. Oh, and according to the Car and Driver road test of the first LM002 to reach North American shores, that big V12 produced 444 horsepower, 22 more than the similarly-motivated Countach because it was a Euro-spec model and had not had its exhaust emissions cleaned up.

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A little over 300 were made in all and most are, considering how they were abused in their early years, still in existence. More incredibly, considering their rarity and prominent place in Lamborghini lore, they also remain reasonably priced, a fair example costing a relatively picayune — by ancient Italian supercar standards at least — USD$400,000.

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King Hussein of Jordan is rumoured to have bought the first LM off the production line with former Formula 1 champ, Keke Rosberg, not far behind. Malcolm Forbes, of Forbes magazine fame, and Sylvester Stallone were amongst the Americans who ponied up the then requisite USD$120,000 (about 500 grand Canadian today) to drive the Rambo Lambo. So did Mike Tyson and Eddie Van Halen.

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Of course, some less savory types also gravitated to the greatest gas guzzler of all time. Pablo Escobar is said to have had one. Ditto Muammar Gaddafi. And a beautiful navy-blue version owned by Saddam’s older son, Uday, is said to have been blown up by the American armed forces after they disposed of him. One presumes they didn’t know what it was. Otherwise, they too might have been charged with crimes against humanity.

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Lamborghini LM002

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Standard fare on an LM002 is a gas tank that holds 169 litres or 45 U.S. gallons. Some desert rats, obviously world about refueling stops in the desert, insisted on something larger, at 290 litres. That’s an incredible 76 U.S. gallons.

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They were absolutely essential, because the combination of tuned 5.2-litre V12 and a 3,075 kilogram (about 6,780 pounds) brick on wheels meant that, officially, fuel economy was on the order of 35 litres per 100 kilometres. In the real-world, it didn’t take much to see its six dual-throat Webers suck back 50 litres every 100 klicks. With great wealth comes massive consumption. Or, at least it did in the early ‘80s.

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According to Lambocars.com, the quest to take the Lambo Rambo racing started innocently enough. First off, chassis number HLA12047’s V12 was pumped up to around 600 horses, thanks to some finagled cams and open race exhaust. Then everything not specifically needed to bound over hill and dale was jettisoned.

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Lamborghini LM002

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This made the Rambo Lambo a little lighter on its feet and a lot more rapid. It was all to no avail. In a pre-race test in Greece, the engine blew up and the whole affair was abandoned.

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By the factory, at least. In 1988, however, a Swiss team, World LM Racing Team, entered a bright red LM002. Its specs were 5.2 litres, 475-hp and a 600-litre gas tank, made necessary because at racing speeds, the big V12 was consuming as much as 68 L/100 km. As for exactly how it did, that seems like more of a mystery than it should be, some records suggesting it finished 10^th in the “Marathon” category; other saying it didn’t finish at all.

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There was a later effort, this time in 1996, by Swiss race car driver named Andrea Barenghi. It too was tuned within an inch of its life and was fitted a Bosch fuel injection system liberated from a Mercedes, not for power but to reduce its incredible fuel consumption. Even so, according to Barenghi, they somehow fitted an 800-litres (211 U.S. gallons!) and entered the 1992 Grenada-Dakar rally. Initially things went pretty darned well, but, says Barenghi, its Achilles Heel proved to be some fancy suspension they had made specifically for Dakar. According to the Swiss driver, because those giant tires weighed so much — 80 kilograms each including the wheel — the Lambo went through their entire supply of more than 20 shock absorbers within a week and they had to abandon the effort.

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The LM002 is the force majeure of classic sport utes. Driving one yet again on its 40^th anniversary just reinforced how far ahead of its time it was.

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Lamborghini LM002

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I love pretty much everything about it. OK, that rock-crushing five speed transmission is a bit gnarly. Ditto the clutch that thinks it’s Arnold Schwarzengger’s squat press machine. And the less than optimum space utilization in the cabin wouldn’t pass muster today.

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But everything else is magical. That totally unnecessary motor. Its aerodynamics-are-for-sissies shape. Those outrageously-sized tires. And, most especially, Lamborghini’s complete disregard for convention, conformity and also — one has to say about the company’s decision to produce an over-priced sport ute during a major economic downturn — consequence.

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I mean look at the thing. It may be 40 years old this year but a better assessment might be that it was 40 years ahead of its time. For all the angst these last few months about fuel prices, the one thing that remains certain — and Ferrari’s introduction of the Luce doesn’t seem to have changed many minds — is that the uber-rich want nothing to do with EVs, pretty much any luxury bolide that relies on pure battery-power being a disappointment.

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On the other hand, imagine if Sant’Agata Bolognese built a beast as outlandishly unrepentant as the original LM002, slipped the Revuelto’s V12 plug-in hybrid powertrain into its engine bay and once again convinced Pirelli to build some monstrous, albeit more modern, tires. I think that the billionaire crowd would fall all over themselves rushing to get their deposits in.

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C’mon Lamborghini, one more time.

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