Lamborghini Head of Design Mitja Borkert on Hexagons and the New Temerario
Before our interview, Lamborghini head of design Mitja Borkert runs in a back room and returns with a file envelope full of sketches of the new Lamborghini Temerario. The Temariario is set to replace the Huracán as the "entry level" Lambo. With the Huracán having a nearly 10-year run, with variants from Evo to STO to the unexpected but delightful lifted Sterrato, it was time to bring in not a variant, but a whole new car.
During the unveil at the Quail, Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann said that the Temerario joins a lineup at Lamborghini that is "better than ever before."
For details on the Temerario (once again named for a fighting bull, this one from 1875, and reportedly, "very brave"), click over to this detailed report by Caleb Miller. Short version is, V-8, three electric motors, AWD, 907 horsepower and 538 pound-feet of torque, and more cabin and luggage space. As for the art behind it, let's get back to Borkert and his sketches.
C/D: You're so prepared!
MB: I'm born prepared.
We've had a bunch of good years of Huracán with just little changes. You lift it up, you lower it down, you power only the rear wheels, you put a wing on. How different did you feel you needed to make Temerario?
When you present a new car, you always want to have the wow effect. Over the last eight years as a design director at Lamborghini, I've come to understand perfectly what is the design DNA. You were highlighting that we have our shape.
As long as I'm responsible for it, I will never change the silhouette of Lamborghini. Whenever you see such a car from far away, you see Countach. If you see the Temerario, you will recognize from far away that the Lamborghini is arriving. This is my number-one value.
But we are using a different design language all the time for every new model. It is a little bit like music. Let's take Marilyn Manson. It was shocking, shocking, shocking. But at one point, the shock is over, right? Artists like, I don't know, Madonna, they are constantly changing. So they have their DNA, but they're constantly changing their style. And that keeps them fresh for 40 years. And I see this a little bit with our cars.
Is there any carryover from Huracán to Temerario?
There's not a single screw from the predecessor. There is nothing from the past. Everything is new.
Stephan mentioned more interior room. It's hard to make more interior room without making the car much bigger. What did you do?
We did one Le Mans race car trick: we have lifted the roof on top of the passengers, like in the old days, with the Gurney Bubble. A Lamborghini-style Gurney Bubble. And that was allowing us to do another design cue down the center of the car, because we could integrate an aerodynamical shaped channel, to bring the air flow toward the fixed rear wing.
All these drawings have hexagons circled all over the car. Talk hexagon. What's the appeal, are you a beekeeper? What speaks to you about this shape?
I was completely fascinated and wanted to have this hexagon as the main feature. I don't know how many million years old it is as a design feature. But the hexagon is a striking design element of the Sixties. So at the time of the Concorde airplane, you know, the mission to fly to the moon, when you look at architecture, it was very hexagonal.
And when Lamborghini, when Ferruccio Lamborghini started his mission to create cars, Bertone designed cars using the hexagon. There was a concept car, the Lamborghini Marzal, that was using the hexagon in the side door. And the interior was full of hexagon. The Miura was using a rear mesh full of hexagon. And then, you know, even before my period, being responsible for the design, designers like Walter de Silva, Luc Donckerwolke, they were using hexagons. And when you cut the hexagon in half, you will have the Y shape they were using, on the taillights of the Gallardo or on the Aventador, for example. So it was clear to me when I joined Lamborghini that those elements are Lamborghini elements. I want my car to be recognizable as a Lamborghini from far away, from a helicopter, but also as you get closer in on the details.
So how do you make a car that is recognizable using the same ideas, without becoming a cliché of those ideas?
There's always a question: Are you doing a Miura? We are not doing a new Miura. But, you know, people like that clean design. So we did that with the Countach (2022). We have done that last year with the Lanzador concept car. I think also that the Temerario is more on the clean side. But I still have my fans who are enjoying Vision GT, who are enjoying an STO, who want wings, complicated but sophisticated arrow shapes. As Lamborghini is becoming a little bit bigger, we have opened our design language and I have a much easier life now because there are more places to put my ideas, to meet the different audiences. Can I tell you a funny story about Lamborghini shapes?
I love a funny story.
I was traveling. I bought myself 1:18-scale Countach and had it in the backpack in the security control at the airport. They are checking through the luggage and the scanner shows a piece of metal inside. The first guy was telling me, what is in your backpack? Take it out. And the second guy was saying, ah, but you don't need to, it's a Lamborghini. He recognized it. I'm sure it wouldn't happen on another car.
Ha! Speaking of scale, for the longest time, the way to make a car seem cooler than the previous car was to make it wider. And we have reached a point where the cars are the size of the lanes now. What do you see in the future? They can't keep getting bigger.
I see it as critical as you see it, especially on the daily-use cars. I mean, we are from Europe, we have the carriage roads. But I think our cars, like the Revuelto, it looks impressive, big, but when you drive it, you feel like a pilot, and the car feels one class smaller. The way that
Rouven Mohr, our chief technical officer, and the team develop the cars, we always have an eye on that. The car feels more compact and fun.
We are a brand where you always need to feel the emotion, you need to feel a vibration, you need to feel good vibes. We're here for that.
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