Lamborghini's canceled plans to build the Estoque, the ungainly four-door concept sedan named after a bull-fighting sword first shown last fall at the Paris Motor Show.
“The timing and market conditions are just not right for an additional model line,” Lamborghini’s boss of research and development Maurizio Reggiani told Autocar.
The first Lamborghini in two decades with an engine up front and two seats in the back would have been powered by the Gallardo’s V10 or—save our souls—an Audi turbodiesel.
What better time than now to reminisce about a four-seat Lamborghini that did get built: the wonderful Espada grand tourer, produced between 1968 and 1978. While not a sedan but rather, a four-seat coupé, designer Marcello Gandini—of Miura, Countach and Lancia Stratos fame—introduced a twist never since reproduced: the Espada became a coupé not by a roof that swung downward, but by a floor that appeared to swing upward:
The result was a lovely shape which takes some getting used to, but does what no other 2+2 coupé can: enable lanky 6'2" guys to sit comfortably in the back seats. Where they can swing open the back windows and listen to a gasoline-fueled V12 engine do its thing through four chrome-tipped tailpipes.
Photo Credit: Balázs Fenyő (Espada), edans/Flickr (bullfighter)