Lamborghini’s Legendary V12 Once Powered Racing Boats

Until the turn of the century, Lamborghini didn’t have much involvement in racing. Ferruccio Lamborghini just wasn’t as interested in seeing his cars on the track as rival Enzo Ferrari, whose crude approach to customer service was allegedly Lamborghini’s inspiration for making cars, and not just tractors. But for decades there was a place where Lamborghini raced—and won. It just wasn’t on pavement.

Lamborghini began adapting its V12 engines for marine use just a few years after it started putting them in cars. From the 1980s to the 2000s, those engines would become a force to be reckoned with in offshore powerboat racing, as this video from the YouTube channel Véhicule explains.

In 1967, just four years after launching his eponymous car brand, Ferruccio Lamborghini had a Riva Super Aquarama fitted with a pair of V12s based on the road car engine. Originally displacing 3.5 liters in Lambo’s first production car, the 350 GT, this engine would grow in displacement and gain modern updates like fuel injection over the following decades, remaining in production until the Aventador ushered in a (relatively short-lived) second-generation V12 in 2011.

The boss’ boat was a one-off, but Lamborghini eventually developed dedicated marine engines that, while not identical to its car engines, shared the gasoline, naturally aspirated, V12 format. In 1982, the company introduced an 8.0-liter engine making up to 720 horsepower. Two of these engines powered a 38-foot monohull Lamborghini racing boat (appropriately dubbed Miura) to what would be the first of many championships in 1984.

The Lamborghini Marine V12: 9.3 Liters, 880 HP and 10 World Titles

Lamborghini went on to build two specs of V12 during the 1980s heyday of offshore powerboat racing. The L804 displaced approximately 8.2 liters and had a 60-degree “V” like the road-car engine. It produced 880 hp but, despite aluminum construction, weighed 793 pounds. The L900 was even more monstrous, at 9.3 liters of displacement, but used carburetors instead of fuel injection. As a result, it made “only” 770 hp. That’s because it was designed more for longevity and reliability in large luxury yachts, according to a 2024 Silodrome post on the engines.

Lamborghini engines continued winning into the early 2000s, powering Spirit of Norway to a handful of titles in the first decade of the 21st century. The automaker wound down its involvement in offshore powerboat racing after that, although in 2020 it did collaborate with boatbuilder Italian Sea Group on the Tecnomar for Lamborghini 63, a yacht with styling details inspired by the Sián FKP 37 supercar. It had a pair of V12s, although they were supplied by MAN.