About a month ago we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Lamborghini Urraco, today it’s time for her bigger sister, the V12 powered Jarama, introduced at the 1970 Geneva Motor Show in the initial GT trim, which would later be replaced by the Jarama GTS in 1972 with a revised interior, new wheels and some minor tweaks on the exterior.
Keep in mind the Jarama was the last 2+2 model Lamborghini would make, to date, they never built another model in this configuration again in Sant’Agata, so that makes the Jarama a very interesting model in the history of Lamborghini, with the name taken from a breed of fighting bulls from an area to the north of Madrid, in Spain, the Jarama was sometimes known as the ‘smaller’ version of the four-seater Lamborghini Espada.
The Lamborghini Jarama was the successor to the Islero, which was an evolution of the classic 400 GT 2+2 model from the Sixties, and while the Espada would continue to be built until 1978, the Jarama GT was in 176 units from 1970 to 1972, while the improved Jarama GTS would reach a production number of only 152 units between 1972 and 1976.
Initially, the Jarama V12 engine delivered 350 hp in 1970, that was increased to 365 hp for the GTS model in 1972, note that the earliest bodies were built by Carrozzeria Marazzi, the same company that made the Lamborghini Islero bodywork, strangely enough, the production version of the Jarama was built by Bertone, while the final 100 Jarama in 1972 would be a hybrid between panels being made by Bertone, but assembly was done by Marazzi according to the official press release.
For many years, the Islero and Jarama were considered to be ‘forgotten’ in the automotive market, if you mentioned Lamborghini, most people would know about the Countach, the Diablo, the Murciélago and the Aventador together with the Gallardo and now the Huracan but models like the Jarama, Islero and even the Jalpa weren’t too well-known to most people. But this has been changing over the last years, and today a Jarama is considered as much a real Lamborghini as the more exotic models, and while values aren’t as high as for a Miura or a Countach, the Jarama has steadily been rising if we take a look at auction and sales results.
