Despite all the hard work they take to make, supercar replicas just don’t really do it for most of us. After all, what’s the point if it doesn’t have the poised chassis of a real supercar, or its theatrical engine? Obviously, the easiest way around it all is to shoehorn a V12 in any way you have to—like one South African is doing to his secondhand Lamborghini Countach kit car, using the V12 out of a Toyota Century.
Gareth Bargate explains in the newest of his YouTube build videos that he picked up his replica Lamborghini in rough shape, with decent paint but dire mechanicals. The 302-ci Ford V8 and Audi transaxle that came with it were tuckered out, so he yanked them in favor of a more suitable power plant. Not a BMW, Jaguar, or Mercedes-Benz V12 like people sometimes throw in Volvos, but the one and only Toyota V12.
Toyota used the 5.0-liter 1GZ-FE V12 in its Century luxury sedan between 1997 and 2017, officially rating it at 276 horsepower and 355 lb-ft of torque. Bargate looked up the VIN of the car his motor came from, which revealed the engine had over 200,000 miles on it. But a compression test and oil pressure reading showed the V12’s vitals were still good, so the sight-unseen purchase wasn’t an unwise one. It’ll eventually be mated to a six-speed manual transaxle out of a diesel Audi A6, which’ll sound more fitting when you learn it’s related to the one in the Porsche 718 Cayman.
While many build channels waste viewers’ time with 30-minute videos that still omit anything of substance, Bargate’s two videos so far have been brief, worthwhile watches. It’ll be a pleasure seeing this faithful not-a-Lamborghini come together, and hopefully, crashing an owners’ meet one day. You can’t help but wonder if they’d be impressed enough to welcome it among their ranks. Fail that, it’ll be the star of a kit car show—a more fun group to party with, I suspect.
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