A team of Iranian automotive engineers revealed the fruit of more than four years of labor on Friday with the unveiling of what would appear to be a Lamborghini Murcielago. Except, confirms the team, that the car isn’t a Lamborghini at all.
Built in the Iranian city of Tabriz, the reveal of the copycat luxury supercar is as close to the real thing as one can buy without Ferruccio Lamborghini’s zodiac sign on the hood. Four years of hard work went into the car’s overall build, including the time which it took to research, design, and finally manufacture the car.
“We selected a unique model of a superior brand, and tried to be faithful to the main features and even the simplest details of the original model,” said Masoud Moradi, who led the engineering and design teams, “All parts of the body, inside the car and precise mechanics of the car are manufactured and mounted based on the original of Murcielago platform. Its chassis is also one and one with the original.”
Although Moradi does mention that the Murcielago had been test-driven and is slated for market “soon,” the team’s goal wasn’t just to build these replicas for mass production. Rather, the niche project was put together to reverse engineer Lamborghini’s build and gather the in-depth knowledge required to manufacture cars of equal quality and stature.
The Lamborghini Murcielago is one of the most iconic supercars of the 21st century. With just 4,099 examples built between 2001 and 2010, and even fewer of the more track-oriented SV variants, the high-horsepower bullfighter remains to be one of the most influential modern day supercars.