Lamborghini's Egoista concept has found a new permanent home at the firm's museum in Italy. The single-seat Egoista, revealed last year in celebration of Lamborghini's 50th anniversary, is described as the only car of its kind in the world.
The Egoista was originally revealed by brand boss Stephan Winkelmann at a dinner last year, held to mark the end of the week-long drive by 350 Lamborghinis through Italy, organised in celebration of the marque's 50th birthday. Lamborghini describes the Egoista as a gift to itself, and says that no person will ever own it.
The Walter De Silva designed car takes its name from the fact that it has just one seat: Egoista translates from Italian as "selfish". The styling is said to be inspired by that of an Apache helicopter, and the lightweight car is extensively made of aluminium and carbonfibre and finished in a radar-resistant paint to emphasise the car's stealth attributes. Power comes from a 592bhp 5.2-litre V10 engine.
De Silva, the head of design for the entire VW Group, said: "This is a car made for a single person, to have fun and to express their own personality. It is designed for people who want the most extreme and most special things in the world. This car represents extremes of hedonism; it is a car without compromise. In a word, it is selfish."
De Silva was helped with the Egoista's creation by Alessandro Dambrosio and Stefan Sielaff, who head the VW Group's exterior and interior design teams respectively. The side profile of the car is said to have been configured to represent a charging bull with its head down, pointing at the front wheels. The rear of the car has been left exposed to give the Egoista cleaner aerodynamics and a more dramatic look. Lamborghini has described the Egoista as "a four-wheeled UFO".
Talking about the Egoista's most striking aspect, its ejectable cockpit, De Silva said: "The cockpit, made entirely of carbonfibre and aluminium, represents a sort of survival cell, allowing the driver to isolate and protect themselves from outside elements. We kept an eye on the future when designing the Egoista, with the idea that the cockpit could have been taken from a jet aircraft and integrated in to a road vehicle, to provide a different travel option."
Click here to see more from Lamborghini's museum.
Additional reporting by Darren Moss, 19 May 2014
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Walter da Silva, surely?
You don't say!
Another reason is perhaps evident in picture 7 where the tyre wall is pressing the front tyre out.
Cotton Harvester