By Mark Smeyers on February 18. 2021 in LamboNEWS.
Today we all know the Super Trofeo series that puts the impressive Lamborghini Huracán against both gentleman drivers and professional drivers on tracks in Europe, the United States, the Far East, and now also in the Middle East … but all this mono-brand racing was actually started 25 years ago when Lamborghini created the Diablo SV-R.
In 1996 the only model Lamborghini was building at the Sant’Agata factory was the V12 Diablo, production of the off-road LM002 was halted in 1992, and the V8 Jalpa went out of production even earlier in 1988. A new V10 model to be made alongside the Diablo was under development as the 1992 P140 and by 1995 the ItalDesign Cala was shown … but in 1996 it was all about the Diablo.
At that time we had different models of the Diablo available, the original Diablo 2WD, the Diablo VT that was introduced in 1993, and the Diablo SV from 1995, which stood for Sport Veloce, while the Diablo VT Roadster came around in late 1995 too … but at the 1996 Geneva Motor Show, Lamborghini unveiled something really special: the Diablo SV-R, the race version for the Sport Veloce.
The Lamborghini Diablo SV-R would be entered into the first Lamborghini mono-brand racing series ever, the Philippe Charriol SuperSport Trophy, and these cars carried a plaque stating ‘Diablo SV modificata Racing’ together with their unique number … only 31 would be made in total, the black car in this article is nr 16 that was raced in Australia by Paul Stokell long after the SuperSport Trophy series used the SV-R model.
Chassis TLA12585 was built for the Lamborghini SuperSport Trophy in 1996, and it even won the championship in 1998 driven by Fabio Santaniello, before she got imported into Australia for the 2000 Australian Nations Cup Championship, entered by Team Lamborghini Australia with Paul Stokell as the driver.
The car was used for two competition years, 2000, and 2001, and during that period she managed 18 wins before she was replaced with the newer Lamborghini Diablo GT-R, in which he won the 2003 Australian Nations Cup Championship by the way.
Today this rare Lamborghini race car is 25 years old, but this black Bull was restored to full racing specs by Lamborghini Melbourne, with invoiced totaling up to AUD 160,000 (about US$125,000) by using genuine factory parts to get to this point. This car is now eligible for entry into the prestigious LeMans Classic for instance.
At the time of writing, this specific car is listed for sale at Trading Garage in Australia … bidding has gone up to AUD150,000 already, and that doesn’t even cover the restoration costs, so I do hope the seller will see a higher amount by the time the auction ends on February 28, 2021 … check out the result on our auction page for this car.
The Diablo SV-R is an important milestone in the history of Lamborghini, it is the first official factory entry into a race car for the track (let’s not forget the special LM002 rally cars) into a Championship where only identical cars from the same make would compete against each other, the SV-R started this trend, after four years, for the 2000 Championship, the Lamborghini Diablo GT-R took over, a car that cost US$310,000 at that time.
The Lamborghini GTR Supertrophy series ran from 2000 to 2002, remember the Lamborghini Murciélago was unveiled in September 2001 to replace the Diablo, and while we did get a Murciélago R-GT race car, there was no mono-brand championship anymore until 2009 when the Lamborghini Gallardo Super Trofeo was entered into a brand new mono-brand championship that would ultimately lead to the Huracan Super Trofeo EVO we know today … but the Diablo SV-R was the first Lamborghini specifically built for a mono-brand series.