AUTODROME has a long tradition of passion for classic Lamborghini and Ferrari, and shares this passion with many enthusiasts and collectors in the world. We are happy to announce that, thanks to the excellent relations existing between Carrosserie Heuliez, Lamborghini and Autodrome, the PREGUNTA has joined our Classic Car Collection.

The Lamborghini V12-powered Pregunta is a fascinating automobile, irradiating power and extreme speed. Like a dream-car come true in a dull industrial landscape, it's the ultimate statement in the revolutionary Lamborghini legend... Ferruccio sadly left the scene in 1993, but was it possible to continue its spiritual legacy in a totally original and outrageous concept-car ? The answer was the PREGUNTA.

Here is the story of a unique automobile, designed and built in Italy, born from a genetic cross-over between high-end technology and voluptuous mechanical pleasure.

1. An agreement between Lamborghini and Heuliez-Torino.

In 1998, Lamborghini is just emerging from three successive change of hands.

The Diablo, a V12 two-seater designed by Gandini, and a brilliant successor to the Countach, had been a success since 1990. But in 1994, Chrysler - then owner of the firm - sells Lamborghini to the Megatech Group. The next year the firm is sold once again, to Tommy Suharto, son of the Indonesian President, just before the purchase of 100% of the shares of Lamborghini by Audi-VW, effective in July 1998.

But a few weeks before this complete change of identity and culture, on June 15 th, 1998, a last-minute agreement is signed in Sant'Agata between the Lamborghini factory and the Italian branch of the French Carrossier Heuliez, a specialist of prototypes cars and special models. By contract, Lamborghini donates a factory Diablo development car as a basis for the creation of a new, one-off model. Nobody know the aspect and the name of the future concept-car and Lamborghini's intentions are not openly revealed.

Heuliez intend to celebrate its fiftieth participation in the Paris Motor Show, as well as to demonstrate its capabilities in developing a fully functional prototype super car... But several clauses of the contract suggest a possible future for thesuper car  prototype to come.

On the one hand, Lamborghini demanded that the design of the car should be "new, original and impossible to confuse with any other car's shapes" (but wasn't this one of the key features of the Mura and of the Countach..?). On the other hand, Heuliez committed to build only one example of the concept-car and to prevent themselves from selling to any third party the industrial property rights of the future Pregunta. Also, Lamborghini reserved the right for them to display the car at any time ...

Jet fighter or Formula 1 ? The most provocative and brilliant design since the Carabo dream-car by Bertone, the Countach ... or the American Vector (inspired by the Italian masterpieces).

Another important clause states that the Pregunta should be approved by Lamborghini before any presentation to the public and to the Press. The agreement also states that the car made by Heuliez should not create for Lamborghini clients "an expectation about further production of the concept-car, with possible negative consequences on the sale of cars built by Lamborghini"...

The take over of Lamborghini by Audi, at the end of 1998 translated in a brutal discontinuation of another exciting project : the "Canto", then in the middle of its develoment, and that should have become the "super-Lamborghini". The Direction of Audi AG demanded the immediate destruction of all existing prototypes.

However, it is fortunately too late to stop the Lamborghini / Heuliez-Torino project, which will effectivley lead to the creation of the magnificent and radical Pregunta, and to its presentation at the 1998 Paris and 1999 Geneva Motor Shows. The style is from Marc Deschamps' Studio. Marc Deschamps was the successor of Marcello Gandini at Bertone as Head of Style, and signed among other masterpieces the Roadster Lamborghini Athon in 1980, and more recently the super car Edonis.

2. Pregunta: a V12 Lamborghini speedster with spaceship and aircraft steroids !

The Pregunta Speedster is a concept car combining advanced technology with animal beauty, but it is also a fully functionnal prototype with state-of-the-art performances: 530 HP (the F50 has only 520), enabling a top speed of 333 km/h and less than 20 s. for the standing km. With its aggressive space and aircraft inspiration, this prototype could have become a "super-Lamborghini ", topping the Diablo as a most exclusive high-end sports car.

The Pregunta uses Aerospace and Formule 1 technologies: Dassault "stealth" external paintwork (from the Dassault Rafale jet fighter), dynamic air intakes, fully exlectronic F-1 type Marelli instruments, 4 points Schrott safety belt harness, internal optical fiber lighting (DGA), rear-view camera replacing the mirrors, CDI Cristine GPS system, combat jet-derived cockpit ergonomy…

The style of the PREGUNTA is exceptionally rich, innovative, a deliberate breakthrough from the conservative and even conformist design of today.

The ultra low shape (1,10 m), with an immense and almost horizontal windscreen, creates a strong impression of dynamics and brute force. The mutant nose seems to come from a racing prototype, spiced-up with the agressiveness of a catamaran boat. The wide-open front air intake for the radiator is highlighted by an enormous spoiler, whilst spectacular "reactor-like" lateral air scoops gulp fresh air, in line with the aerospace genetic background of the beast.

The rear part of the car is muscular and animal, almost excessively long and wide, and structured around a giant saurian backbone, seems to hide the reactors of a spaceship. A huge ground-effect extractor underlines the innnovative volume arrangement of the back : the enormous engine lid and the rear fenders end in profiled, areodynamic shapes, only pierced by orifices echoing the futurist headlights, whilst the exhaust pipes exhale hot gases into the air...

Carved as a sculpture to split air at high speed, far away from the main stream, the Pregunta questions set new aesthetical standards (Pregunta means "question" in Spanish).

Although a one-off concept-car, the PREGUNTA did fuel some wild dreams, especially for those who desperately expected a successor to the voluptuous Miura and to the extreme Countach...This car remains the last and ultimate special coachwork ever built on a Lamborghini base – just before the Marque being merged into the industrial Audi-VW Group. This automobile is therefore very symbolic since it historically concludes thirty-five golden years of Sant'Agata.

After the PREGUNTA, modern Lamborghini have never brought the same thrill and contagious feeling of passion, this irresistible desire to take the wheel and hear the V12 Lamborghini howling behind your back...

One single example of the PREGUNTA powered by Lamborghini exists, and it was entirely hand-built in 1998, by the best craftsmen and technicians of Carrozzeria Heuliez-Torino in Italy.

The V12 is by Lamborghini but the machine seems boosted with kerozene or propergol, and ready to race on the track or to be launched in the outer space.

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A little like the Pregunta, the style of the Edonis breaks away from previous trends : a mix of brute force and rounded curves, its compact shapes can be compared to the Veyron. The front is also aerodynamically similar to the Pregunta, dictated by the very high-speed constraints. But the Pregunta, with the distance of time, is clearly the one that achieved the best balance between provocative innovation and classic design, successfully combining animal connotations, high-tech, aircraft style and legendary racing prototypes heritage.