The Marco Polo was designed by Giugiaro and Ital Design, it was meant to be an evolution of the Lamborghini Espada, but it never even reached the stage of being built in metal. The car shown here is in fact a 1:1 wooden model.
The Marco Polo was presented on December 3, 1982 and appeared on the 1982 Bologna Motor Show.
The design featured seating for four persons, with only two gullwing type doors, these doors however could be opened from both the front and rear seats, allowing easy exit for the passengers.
The car could be installed on any chassis, but Giugiaro preferred the bull emblem from Sant’Agatha, it was to be a full four-seater, with a central mounted 5-Litre engine.
The Marco Polo’s round lines didn’t get accepted at Nuova Automobili Ferruccio Lamborghini, and it was abandoned by Ital Design. It is however noteworthy to know that almost every coach builder designed a car to be put on a Lamborghini chassis, but most of them never really proposed their design, or got rejected by the Lamborghini management.
Actually after the Jalpa, no new Lamborghini was built up to the Diablo, so there wasn’t much room for any other designer.
Ital Design did propose a new design to Automobili Lamborghini SpA much later, the very good looking Cala was also an ItalDesign car, but this time fully functional, again the factory didn’t take it into production and the Cala ended up in the ItalDesign factory museum.
| Dimension | Measurement (mm) |
|---|---|
| Length | 4625 |
| Width | 1870 |
| Height | 1300 |
| Wheelbase | 2750 |
| Track Front | 1600 |
| Track Rear | 1586 |
