Driving a Lamborghini Murcielago with 258k miles on the clock

George says he knew he was going to repair the car almost before the dust had settled – “it was one of those heart-over-head things” – but it took four years and around £90,000 to get it back on the road. That included straightening the chassis with a special supercar-grade jig and some very expensive parts. (The headlights were £6000 each.) The total could have been even higher but George got special labour rates from Lamborghini Manchester, which sold the car originally, and some of 6th Gear’s mechanics volunteered unpaid overtime to get the car repaired. Now retired from frontline duties, ‘SG54 LAM’ has become George’s daily driver again, racking up the miles on his commute from Sheffield to 6th Gear’s HQ in Sutton Coldfield. Bigger trips to Scotland and the Lamborghini factory at Sant’Agata are also planned.

Now the freshly rebuilt car sits on later-spec LP640 wheels, chosen to house bigger brakes, but otherwise it looks factory fresh. It’s only when I move in closer that I find signs of a life lived hard. The ‘V12 6.2L’ badge on the rear flank is heavily scratched and opening the driver’s gullwing door shows the raised ‘Murciélago’ motif on the plastic sill protector has been worn away by the thousands of bums that have slid over it. The cabin is far from immaculate, some hard-to-find trim is still missing, and the most telling detail is wear to the fuel filler release button. “I’ve literally got to know most of the staff in every petrol station on the M1,” George says.

My nostalgia receptors are soon throbbing. The Murciélago was still in production when I last sat in one and much is familiar, but it’s also a mild shock to realise how old it now feels in places. This was the first Lambo launched after the Audi takeover, and although it was an ergonomic masterpiece compared with the Diablo it replaced, supercars have become far more usable in the past 15 years. The driving position is offset by the vast front wheel well that squeezes the pedals left, and the steering column’s lack of adjustment enforces the sort of long-arm, shortleg position that used to be referred to as ‘Italian ape’. The spherical metal gearlever in its open gate is like meeting an old friend. Many Murciélago’s had the lunge-prone automated e-Gear transmission, but George went for the manual. 

Age definitely hasn’t wearied this Lamborghini: it still feels outrageously quick. The combination of wet conditions and winter tyres leave it struggling to find enough traction to deploy anything like its full complement of 572bhp, with the old-fashioned stability control stepping in like a particularly humourless health and safety inspector if even a hint of slip is detected and winding the engine right back for a couple of seconds. Fortunately, the huge V12 is tractable from idle and as happy exploring its broad mid-range as it is making excursions to the 7600rpm redline. Conditions allow for only a couple of scoots of full acceleration, but they’re enough to confirm that even if newer Lamborghinis have got faster, they’re no more exciting.

Midlands country lanes aren’t the most obvious playground for a Murciélago. Although the visibility is much better than in a Diablo or Countach, this car is still as wide as a tractor and the view forward is limited when it’s raining by the threeinch strip of screen that the wiper doesn’t sweep. Although the original adaptive dampers have long since died, George has replaced them with decently pliant passive ones; and although the steering is lower geared than an Aventador’s or Huracán’s, it’s much more communicative as well. The gearshift suits the car perfectly, too. It’s heavy and needs to be guided carefully between planes but provides so much more physical reward than pulling a flappy paddle.