It’s not every day you see a classic Lamborghini Espada up for grabs, especially one that has already had a decent amount of heavy lifting done with some minor sorting needed. This car was actually on its way overseas before a previous sale fell apart following the springtime pandemic, so the seller has already drained the car of all fluids. The fuel tanks have already been removed and cleaned up, and several other maintenance jobs will be completed before the next owner takes possession. Find it here on craigslist with an asking price of $85,000.
The interior appears to be in fine shape, and the seller notes the leather is still soft. The carpet may need replacing at some point, but no word as to whether it’s due to being torn or wet (or both). Some rust is noted at the bottom of the doors, but it hasn’t gone through all the way. Interestingly, the seller notes he has several original features, like the tool roll and the cover for the rear glass, but it’s his mention of the “….original Italian license tag” that perks my ears up: was this a gray market example that made its way stateside?
Some of the other big projects the seller has already tackled include: rebuilt carbs; rebuilt distributor; new fuel pumps; new rear fuel filter element; new fuel lines to front of car; air filter boxes cleaned and painted correctly; and new wires and plugs. The seller has sent out the brake booster and brake master cylinder for rebuilding, and those parts will be back before the car is sold. The Espada is a radio delete car from the factory, and that combined with the possible gray market status make it an intriguing specimen. Of course, an Espada this close to being finished is attractive no matter how you chop it up, so hopefully it finds a permanent home soon.
I saw one of these in Florida as a kid and I thought it was the coolest looking car I’d ever seen!! The motor looks awesome don’t know if the buy it now is a good price or not cause I’ve never seen one for sale!!
Italian Warp Drive. The top of the engine looks like a prop from a Science Fiction movie. It looks like old Doc Brown built it with Marty. I bet it give traffic cops the hives. 1.21 jigawatts.
Gray market in 1968? There weren’t many rules back then to import a vehicle, add seat belts and maybe a light or two and that was about it.
Italian exotics usually were built to accept either US, European or Italian plates. It use to be fashionable to run the Italian plates which were close to being square behind the standard plate they would stick out top and bottom, and I guess it was meant to show the Italian heritage of the car.
Price on this one is actually a little high, after many years of meteor rocket advances in prices things have started to cool. 10 years ago you could buy a car like this for 15to 20k they then took off to silly levels, but have begun to fall back to earth.
This one I would put in the 70 to 75k range at best, and dependent on its actual needs. Oh and the price is just the entry expect a pretty hefty cash flow to keep it up and running.
These are big cars and great for eating up the miles on the autostrada, and they are visually appealing, but they are not lithe sports cars like a Miura.
I believe the the regulation of cars began in 1967 with the establishment of the National Highway & Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Among the rules were that foreign cars sold in US had to meet US Safety standards for the then-current model year. Those standards in 1968 were, as Kenneth Harper noted, likely limited to little more than seatbelts and sealed bean headlights. To my knowledge, there were no emission standards in 1968.
Oops – KEVIN, not Kenneth!
We had a customer with one of these. Silver over black. Sounds coming out of the engine gave us goose bumps. The one feature we noticed was the 10,000 rpm tach didn’t have a red line. While we were road testing the paint we did run it up close to 10K. Smooth as glass and fast.
Bobhess- roadtesting the paint- LMAO! Been there!!! Great days indeed.
Stay safe.
Cheers
GPC
When I wrenched at a Porsche dealership, the owner bought one of these after he stopped racing boats. Every repair (and something was always inop, usually electric) was either spectacularly easy or deliciously complex. The other Porsche wrenches wouldn’t touch it but being single I didn’t mind staying late to sort out stuff. The car was stunning in person and pictures never did it justice.
I had one of these in the early 80’s, a mk2. Glorious engine in mid rev. range and up, but the Jaguar v12 had more torque at low to medium revs. However, the interior of the mk1’s and mk2’s were of very poor build quality and the roof line so low that my head brushed against the headlining, which was frustrating. Worse, the hood vibrated (more ‘shook’) at about 105 mph, a known fault on Espadas, clearing up when you went past 110 mph, if you had tbe nerve to put up with the problem and the 6, twin choke Webers were subject to catching fire, also a known fault. Having experienced both faults I wouldn’t want to own one again, though I treasure the memory of that marvellus engine at speed.
Good and trusted seller. A couple of my cars have lurked behind that door.
too many cylinders.
Its such a fastback the rear window is like roof, yet not over any seats. The “back glass cover” might be for that problem. It duz open like a hatch which i really like (may B that’s the cover – inside 2 hide). And the roof is not much above your waste as U stand beside it. Another like – (once inside, not sure I could get in but) the perfect driving position for me – hands out legs out. Course no 80K$ and no 300$/wk maintenance fee…
Located in Leesville,SC