Lamborghini set yet another delivery record in 2024: 10,687 of its cars found a home last year, an increase of 6% over the 10,112 delivered in 2023. The company seems to have found the Midas Touch, and its classic models are becoming increasingly sought-after as well. Hagerty included the Gallardo with a six-speed stick on its 2025 Bull Market List, while the Countach 25th Anniversary appeared on the 2024 Bull Market List.
Cast in this light, we wouldn’t be surprised to see Polo Storico, Lamborghini’s in-house restoration department, offer continuation cars. Imagine a new Countach with an à la carte menu of options ranging from period-correct features to equipment crossing into restomod territory.
I bet it’d sell; the demand is there. Looking at some of Polo Storico’s past work, the skills are certainly there as well. And yet, the answer is “no.”
“We are not interested [in resto-mods and continuation cars],” Giuliano Cassataro, the head of service for Polo Storico, told me in the division’s headquarters, a stone’s throw from the Lamborghini factory. Coffee table-sized blueprints from the 1960s showing a never-built prototype were strewn across a big table as we spoke. “For us, there is only one Countach. There were different series of the Countach, but we are not allowed to change anything in the car. It was born in that year, with this color, in this configuration, and with this interior, and it must be like it was,” he said.
The aforementioned blueprints are part of Lamborghini’s vast archives, which include key details on every car built since the brand’s inception in 1963. From the first 350GT to the Revuelto that rolled off the line earlier today, every car has an ID card that lists the original paint color, the type of upholstery it was built with, the options ordered, plus information such as the date it was completed and the country it was delivered to.
Offering continuation cars, which amounts to building a new classic from scratch, would be re-inventing history. Some companies are fine with that, and there’s something to be said for a continuation car that’s done just right, but Lamborghini values its heritage too much to jump in.
“We don’t want to change the history. With the Revuelto, the Huracán, and the Urus, we are building the heritage of the future. But, our existing heritage is exactly what it is. We celebrated the Miura through the Aventador Miura Homage, and it wasn’t a continuation car,” Cassataro noted, referring to a limited-edition Aventador that featured several Miura-inspired styling cues. “This is the maximum that we can do,” he concluded.
So, what about the 1971 Countach LP 500 prototype, which Lamborghini rebuilt from scratch in 2021? Some might argue it’s a continuation car; Cassataro disagreed. The distinction is that it uses an existing chassis number originally assigned to a car that was destroyed in a crash test in 1974. It was painstakingly rebuilt to its original configuration, and it looks exactly as it did when it made its debut at the 1971 Geneva Auto Show.
“This was a project to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Countach,” Cassataro explained. “One of our best customers and collectors started dreaming, he wanted to be part of this project. We started dreaming with him. In the end, the car took 25,000 hours to complete. Our research and development department supported us a lot, and our Centro Stile department helped a lot as well. It required a huge amount of research.”
Lamborghini notably hand-beat new body panels for the car using custom-made molds. Even some of the prototype’s quirks were retained. For example, the air intakes aren’t functional and the pop-up headlights don’t work. Cassataro pointed out that the recreation isn’t street-legal.
Polo Storico won’t fit a touchscreen and parking sensors to your Miura, but there’s nearly no limit to the size of the project it’s willing to take on.
“Customers sometimes spend twice the car’s value on its restoration. The project is not an investment. It’s an idea, they have one goal: they want this model in this color in their garage. It’s not a matter of making a business case; it’s a dream. Sometimes they even want a specific VIN.”
This outlook is important, because newer and more common models (such as the Gallardo) will ultimately fall within the scope of Polo Storico. Keep in mind that the department is currently working with a relatively small pool of cars. Less than 800 units of the Miura were built, and Lamborghini made exactly 1,999 units of the Countach during a 17-year production run. In contrast, Gallardo sales totaled about 14,000 units.
“Everything that we do will one day be history. We don’t want to modify the past,” Cassataro summed up.
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