A special event on May 29 in Las Vegas, the United States was the perfect opportunity for a very select group of people that were personally invited to attend by Automobili Lamborghini SpA to actually get behind the impressive red steering wheel of the limited edition Sesto Elemento.
Back in September 2011, at the IAA in Frankfurt, Germany Stephan Winkelmann confirmed a limited production run of only 20 units of the Lamborghini Sesto Elemento (which was unveiled as a concept a year earlier at the 2010 Paris Motor Show by the way) would be built, priced at a serious US$ 2,200,000 the Sesto Elemento would not be street legal and could only be used on track days or on private grounds. Without knowing if the actual production version would be very close to the concept or not Lamborghini still managed to sell the Sesto Elemento … in fact in late June 2012 we heard all of them were sold … but is the Sesto Elemento actually sold out ?
Construction of the concept prototype was handled by Carrozzeria Imperiale, however the production version would be manufactured at the new Prototype and Pre-Series building Automobili Lamborghini SpA inaugurated in July 2012, in fact what is believed to be the first unit of the Lamborghini Sesto Elemento production was on display at the 2012 Pebble Beach event in California.
Fast forward to May 2013 … all of a sudden a photo shows up online depicting a Sesto Elemento with totally different wheels … and a German license plate at the back while being loaded or unloaded from a transporter.
Now things are getting interesting … why would there be a license plate mounted on a car that is limited to only 20 units and isn’t street legal anyway? Is there something in the pipeline Lamborghini hasn’t mentioned yet … all the information we could get our hands on still mentions ‘for track use or on private roads only, not street legal on public road’, so there is no reason to ‘register’ the car and get a license plate right?
Also why would they change the wheels, where the full carbon wheels not up to the task and did they put alloy wheels with carbon fiber fins on the car instead? They still show a central locking nut so at least the Sesto Elemento will not run on regular five bolt wheel fixing, but still it is a strange thing … has something changed that will allow a Sesto Elemento to be registered for road use after all?
Remember back in late June 2012 a statement was made all 20 units were sold … so why put together a special VIP event at the Spring Mountain Motorsport Ranch in Nevada, USA that allows ‘possible customers’ to be a passenger in a Sesto Elemento. At first with a Lamborghini pilot behind the wheel for a few laps after which the ‘invitee’ would be able to drive himself … imagine that: actually driving a 570hp car that weighs less than 1,000 kg on a track?
Something else that captured our eye was the fact the Sesto Elemento at this event sat on street tires in some photos … if this is a track only car and you hand out a ‘test’ on an actual track why not mount racing slicks on it, that would increase cornering speed even further and impress the hell out of the drivers … the answer is simple in fact, during the day in Nevada there were three sessions for people to drive the Sesto Elemento on hand, during one of the sessions a problem with the tires came up and the entire set of wheels and tires was replaced with a different design rims … and different tires.
On the other hand, the single photo of this event that has been posted on the official Automobili Lamborghini SpA FB page shows another thing that is different between this ‘customer test’ car and the earlier concept models … take a look at the side windows … this test car has the small sliding sections we see on race cars while all the time the previous Sesto Elemento we saw had normal side windows … that wouldn’t open, but still.
So what’s the bottom line here … the Sesto Elemento is in fact still a ‘track only’ car, hence the different wheels (I suppose these are stronger) and the special side windows … but why bother with the license plate in Germany? We’ve also picked up the rumor not all 20 units have been firmly assigned yet … there are still a few available … that is why this high profile VIP event was put together in the USA, to sell the remaining $2,2 million Sesto Elemento units … still that license plate keeps lurking in the back of my mind … would there be a Sesto Elemento Strada in the pipeline?
