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 | The Lamborghini Diablo, tuned by Koenig. |  |
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Lamborghini Diablo Koenig Specials.
When Lamborghini showed their Diablo Roadster prototype on the 1992 Geneva Auto Show, orders
began flowing in, but suddenly Lamborghini decided not to built this convertible Diablo.
The customers who already placed their order were refunded, but this wasn't taken for granted
by all of them. Some customers turned to Walter Koenig, a German based high-end car tuner who
became famous, or notorious, with his ultra wide Ferrari conversions.
His Ferrari TestaRossa Special featured a 1000 Bhp (!!!) quad-turbo charged engine, after he
presented the two door version, he also created a convertible Ferrari. With these cars in
mind, converting a Diablo into a Roadster couldn't be too difficult for him, so two
very wealthy customers contacted him to built a Diablo Roadster for them.
It took Walter Koenig about 3 months, but the result was stunning, he created an almost identical
replica of the Diablo Roadster Prototype, the two fortunate people were very impressed with their
final car. But one of them even wanted more, the yellow Diablo featured on this page took
the Roadster idea one step further, Koenig designed a complete body kit for the Diablo.
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He redesigned the front air dam, installed a new rear bumper/spoiler combination and completed
the restyle with a new exhaust system. The engine was tuned to pump out over 600 Bhp by using
two turbo's and the engine cover needed to be redesigned to be able to cool the engine down.
Koenig also contacted OZ to get 18 inch versions of the famous five-hole wheels, but they
refused to deliver them to Koenig, OZ may only build these wheels under contract for Lamborghini,
who have an exclusivity clause in the contract. So Koenig only painted the crest of the wheel
in the car's exterior color.
If you ordered the Koenig Roadster, two helmets were delivered with it, because the windscreen
is hardly worth the name, the helmet was a real good idea. This tuned Roadster was shipped
to his owner in Japan, and the current status is completely unknown.
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During the time Automobili Lamborghini SpA didn't offer the Roadster yet, Koenig made several
open-top replica's, some using the same roof configuration as the yellow one shown on this page,
with the low front windscreen,
but Walter Koenig also proposed a kind of Targa version for the same price of US $ 250.000.
This Targa version still used the full front windscreen, so driving this configuration is less
troublesome than the full spider version, although complete bodywork and engine tuning was available
on both kind of cars.
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Koenig also modified the interior of the Diablo, as usual a complete custom made leather interior was available, but more
important, Koenig altered the dashboard console, it became smaller and more integrated into the overall dashboard. Also a small
diameter custom steering wheel could be installed.
I also found some images of a closed version of the Diablo Koenig, these had a
special rear wing installed, resembling the wing later used on the Diablo SE30. I located a Fujimi 1/24th scale kit of the car
I do know of at least two Diablo's with the bodywork added to them, but I don't know if these specific cars actually got
the engine tuning too.
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Return to the Diablo Line-up.
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