One Of The Ugliest Lamborghinis Ever Made Is Going Up For Sale

Lamborghini launches weirdish one-off concepts and customer-requested models with some regularity these days, but over a decade ago Zagato may have built the weirdest one. It’s dubbed the 5-95, and it’s based on another weird Lamborghini concept, the Zagato Raptor. The 5-95 can be described as the product of one man’s desire to own a modernized version of something that had inspired him. And now, it’s going up for auction to the highest bidder.

So let’s take a moment to appreciate where Zagato was in 2013. It had come off successful launches of cars like the Alfa Romeo 10C TZ3 Stradale, the Aston Martin DB9 Zagato Centennial, and its own version of the Porsche Carrera GT. Generally speaking, it was pumping out some bangers.

Then came along Albert Spiess, a wealthy collector and the owner of several rare Italian sports cars. He saw the 1995 Zagato Raptor and loved it. Based sort of on the Diablo, the Raptor was a far swoopier two-door supercar but what it lacked in hard edges it made up for with hardcore performance features.

It featured a Diablo V12 that made some 620 horsepower thanks to a supercharger. It had a carbon fiber body and weighed some 300 kg (661 lbs) lighter. Zagato added bigger brakes too but also left the car without ABS or traction control. Is it even a Lamborghini from the 1990s if it’s not trying to kill you a little? On top of that, it didn’t have doors so much as it did a roof and upper-door situation that lifted to allow ingress and egress. In any case, Spiess wanted his own one-off modernized version. Enter the 5-95 Zagato.

It might not have the weird roof but it certainly made waves when it debuted at the 2014 Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este. This time, the one-off ended up on a Gallardo chassis with a Gallardo V10 pumping out 560ish horsepower and 398 lb-ft of torque. Think of it as a Gallardo LP570-4 Superleggera with a weird suit on. Really, it’s that body that makes this the weird car that it is.

The front has been likened to a vacuum cleaner and shovel. These are not the objects most sports car companies want customers to think of when they see the final product. It also kinda reminds me of a whale shark. There’s a spoiler at the top of the hood and the bottom of the windshield. Behind the doors, there are no fewer than five separate air intakes including two on each side and one at the back of the roof section.

The lighting situation is somewhat odd too. The front headlamp assemblies have both squares and circles. At least the tail lamps follow that theme with round housings that include six squared LED clusters within them. There’s even an F1-style lamp at the lower center of the rear bumper.

Our very own Adrian Clarke, designer extraordinaire, had this to say about it:

Proof that money can’t buy taste, the mercifully one off 5-95 Zagato was commissioned buy a presumably blind wealthy collector who wanted his own version of the unbuilt Zagato Raptor. The resulting 5-95 looks like an ugly car in the middle of giving birth to a much uglier car. The problem here is it’s trying to force traditional sixties Zagato cues like the double bubble roof and wrap over glazing onto the Germanic rigidity of the underpinning Gallardo – a fine looking car in it;s own right but with more than hint of Audi in it.

What we’re left with is neither fish nor fowl but somehow both – there’s bizarre details like a spoiler at the base windscreen, disjointed glazing and a cross eyed headlight arrangement that works against the gaping maw underneath. I’ve seen better looking faces on the fishmongers counter and I hate it when my dinner gives me the eye.

Somehow, Zagato seems to have stopped the weirdness entirely when it comes to the cabin. Compared to the rest of the car it looks reserved with a light grey and yellow color combination.

The whole weird package is going up for sale at Gooding & Company’s Pebble Beach Auction in August. Zagato never confirmed exactly how many of these it made but it appears that this is the only completed example. In 2018 it announced that it would do a drop-top version but if it exists I can’t find any proof that it exists out there. This could be the only 5-95 to ever exist. It’s weird, and now it can be yours.