The Zagato Raptor, sometimes referred to as the Lamborghini Raptor, is a

concept car A concept car (also known as a concept vehicle, show vehicle or prototype) is a car made to showcase new styling and/or new technology. They are often exhibited at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or ...

design created in 1996 by

Zagato Zagato is an independent coachbuilding company and total design centre located northwest of Milan in Terrazzano, a small village near Rho, Lombardy, Italy. The company's premises occupies an area of 23,000 square metres (250,000 sq ft)- 11,000 of ...

in partnership with

Alain Wicki Alain Wicki (*6. July 1962) is a Swiss skeleton racer who competed from the 1980s to the early first decade of the 21st century. He won a complete set of medals in the men's event at the FIBT World Championships with a gold in 1989, a silve ...

for

Lamborghini Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. () is an Italian brand and manufacturer of luxury sports cars and SUVs based in Sant'Agata Bolognese. The company is owned by the Volkswagen Group through its subsidiary Audi. Ferruccio Lamborghini (1916–1993) ...

. The body features the Zagato "double bubble" design and an innovative door design where the whole middle section of the car swivels up and forward. The

chassis A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of an artificial object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpart ...

is borrowed from a 4WD

Lamborghini Diablo The Lamborghini Diablo is a high-performance mid-engine sports car built by Italian automobile manufacturer Lamborghini between 1990 and 2001. It is the first production Lamborghini capable of attaining a top speed in excess of . After the end ...

. The design was completed and a sample vehicle displayed at the

Geneva Auto Show The Geneva International Motor Show is an annual auto show held in March in the Swiss city of Geneva. The show is hosted at the Palexpo, a convention centre located next to the Geneva Cointrin International Airport. The Salon is organised by the ...

in 1996. At the time of showing, it was believed that the car was ready for production. Utilizing the

drivetrain A drivetrain (also frequently spelled as drive train or sometimes drive-train) is the group of components that deliver mechanical power from the prime mover to the driven components. In automotive engineering, the drivetrain is the components o ...

and

V12 engine A V12 engine is a twelve-cylinder piston engine where two banks of six cylinders are arranged in a V configuration around a common crankshaft. V12 engines are more common than V10 engines. However, they are less common than V8 engines. The fi ...

from the Diablo, but eliminating the

Anti-lock braking system An anti-lock braking system (ABS) is a safety anti-skid braking system used on aircraft and on land vehicles, such as cars, motorcycles, trucks, and buses. ABS operates by preventing the wheels from locking up during braking, thereby maintaini ...

(ABS) and

traction control system A traction control system (TCS), also known as ASR (from german: Antriebsschlupfregelung, lit=drive slippage regulation), is typically (but not necessarily) a secondary function of the electronic stability control (ESC) on production motor vehicle ...

, as well as the extensive use of

carbon fiber Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers (Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon compo ...

for the body work made the vehicle significantly lighter than the Diablo, thus potentially faster. To make up for the lack of ABS and the higher potential speeds, an upgrade from the Diablo's braking system was used. Most media sources speculated that it would have been an excellent car to bridge the gap between the Diablo and its successor, then called the Canto, but Lamborghini did not produce the Raptor. Alain Wicki briefly tried to develop it on his own with Zagato's help, but nothing became of his efforts. He owned the only

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...

until 2000, when it was

auction An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition ex ...

ed at the Geneva Auto Show and bought by a private car collector.

References

External links

LamboCars: Zagato Raptor
{{Modern-auto-stub Lamborghini custom and concept cars

See also

References

External links