Lamborghini’s LM002 was born out of several failed attempts to bring a vehicle to the military to replace the venerable Jeep-based vehicles. Think about that for a moment: Not GM. Not Ford. Lamborghini, a sports car company that at the time was best known for a car whose name translated out of Italian slang into “Holy shit!” was offering up a vehicle for the military! To trace the lineage, you have to understand the issues that bore it’s origin in the first place: by the late 1960s, it was clear that the M151 “Mutt”, the evolution of the M38 (the WWII-era Jeep) needed to be replaced. The phrase that kept getting thrown around at the time was “Fast Attack”…meaning that regardless of terrain, conditions or load, that the replacement vehicle would have to be able to get in and get out in a freaking hurry for any driver behind the wheel. FMC had thrown their hat into the ring in 1972 with the XR311, which sat four, had independent suspension all around, and was powered by a rear-mounted Chrysler small-block V8.
When that didn’t pan out, Lamborghini, in conjunction with a company called MTI, produced a concept called the Cheetah, which sat four, had independent suspension, and a rear-mounted Chrysler small-block V8. If that sounds familiar, that’s because it was, and it was visually close enough that FMC sued MTI in 1977. That lawsuit cost Lamborghini dearly…it caused BMW to cancel a contract with them for production of the BMW M1 sports coupe and put the company into receivership. By 1980 Lamborghini was in liquidation and two brothers, Jean-Claude and Patrick Mimran, purchased the remnants of the company at auction. What was left of the failed development of the Cheetah was massaged and reworked into the LM002, which went to market in 1986. The engine, now a Countach V-12, was mounted up front and driven through a five-speed manual through the overbuilt four-wheel drive system.
A Lamborghini SUV has seemed strange for just about thirty years now, but with the upcoming Lamborghini Urus SUV on the way, it seems fitting that the man with the chin gets some seat time behind the wheel of one of these strange yet interesting beasts. It sounds like a Countach, looks like nothing else out there and proves that some brand names carry weight.
