The Lamborghini Jalpa, a small commercial success at last.

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Lamborghini Jalpa

The Jalpa was the successor to the Lamborghini Silhouette, a Bertone designed evolution of the Silhouette bodywork. On the 1981 Geneva Auto Show a prototype was shown with a rear spoiler installed but it wasn't installed on the actual production types. The dashboard used a new kind of box-shaped instrumentation, on the early Jalpa's a steering wheel similar to the Silhouette's was used, later a bigger, triangular shaped one was installed. New seats were used for the Jalpa, now with fully adjustable backrests. On the whole the Jalpa may look less spectacular than the angular Silhouette, but it still looked stunning. The early production cars used black bumpers to the front and the rear, the side air intakes for the engine were also finished in black, at the rear the taillights from the Silhouette were used. The 3.0-Litre engine from the Silhouette and the Urraco P300 was enlarged to a 75mm stroke resulting in a 3485 cc displacement and pumped out 255 bhp at 7000 rpm, the Jalpa also used 16 inch wheels instead of the earlier 15-inch units on the Silhouette. The Jalpa name was taken from a famous breed of fighting bulls, and it was very easy to drive, even in city traffic. However it had a few faults, the seating position wasn't perfect and the windscreen provided some distracting reflections at night, even the vertical rear window sufferd from this problem through the rear view mirror, and the front lights were hardly adequate. The Jalpa became Lamborghini's most successfull V-8 to date, when its production was halted in July 1988, it had sold 410 units, partly because this Lamborghini, unlike the Silhouette, was again officially certified for sale in the United States. On the 1984 Geneva Auto Show a few changes were presented, the black plastic body parts were now finished in the body color and the tail lights became circular like on a Ferrari. The Jalpa could become unreliable, just like any other Lamborghini or exotic car for that matter, when it wasn't regularly and competently serviced, in terms of pure performance, the Jalpa was as good as the rest but in terms of irresistibility it was at the top of the pile. The Jalpa was known as the Baby-Lambo, the other Lamborghini next to the space-age Countach, but the Jalpa was just as exotic and rare, perhaps even more, because it was built in smaller numbers, everybody recognised the Countach, but the Jalpa was far less well known. The Jalpa was fully capable to be driven in the city, the V-8 was just as lovely to listen to as the V-12 and the steel bodywork by Silver Car of Turin was very sensuous to look at. But during 1987 sales dropped for this beauty and Chrysler, by then owner of Automobili Lamborghini SpA, decided the Jalpa wasn't the car needed next to the Countach and halted its production. But a successor is being designed, it will use a V-10 engine and is called the P-140. Today the Jalpa is regarded as a more 'affordable' Lamborghini, but the used car prices are still around $50.000 for a good car, while $54.000 was its list price. Several Jalpa's were equiped with rare Silhouette-style wheels and some even installed a Countach-type rear wing on it. A few Jalpa's were seen with side mouldings connecting the front and rear wheelarch extensions, most of these were modified in Germany or Switserland.

The Jalpa Speedster prototype

In 1987, a prototype of a Jalpa Speedster was designed and built on the second Jalpa ever built, a silver over blue one, still owned by the factory. The front was left unchanged but the rear now used lines similar to those of the 1980 Athon, but the biggest problem was the ragtop, since the rear part of the car was so large, the top seemed too small. A suitable solution for this wasn't found and in early 1987 the project was permanently set aside.

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