Lamborghini reveals ‘sculpture on four wheels’ Manifesto concept

Described as a sculpture rather than a production-intent vision, Lamborghini’s Manifesto is the brand’s latest muse. Design director, Mitja Borkert, revealed the new concept at the Museo Lamborghini during an event to mark 20 years of the company’s in-house design facility.

 Car Design News: What does Manifesto mean for Lamborghini? 

Mitja Borkert: The manifesto of our taste is a statement of the Centro Stile team, this is how we are envisioning the future shape of a Lamborghini. This sculpture is like a compass that is guiding us into the future. It’s a sculpture that clearly takes all the design DNA lines and shapes of Lamborghini but in a very human way. 

CDN: Walk us through some of the key features of the design. 

MB: Lamborghini is about the hexagon, so we have hexagon wheels. We have the Y shape as our statement as a signature at the front of the car. The Manifesto, of course, celebrates the shark nose. The body side is super clean, I really love this transition from negative to positive. There is no engine inside, this is a pure sculpture, a design manifesto.

At the rear, you can see the purism of Lamborghini again with the Y shape in a vertical way. Here we also have this motorcycle or spaceship inspiration, so you can see in this view the car looks spectacular. It has very simple shapes that are taking the tradition of Lamborghini into the future. 

CDN: Why was now the right time to reveal this concept? 

MB: We’ve been thinking and dreaming about such a sculpture for a few years. I wanted to disrupt our comfort zone and wanted to have a different impulse for the design. I understood that the 20th anniversary of Centro Stile could be a nice moment to reveal Manifesto. We were using this sculpture also for internal presentations to do a manifestation of our holistic brand and design language. Our CEO loves it and in the Volkswagen group when we presented it internally, everyone liked it so that gave us the courage to show it. 

CDN: Where did the idea come from? 

MB: We wanted to leave behind the Terzo Millennio. It’s an incredibly cool car. At the time, it served me when I was new at Lamborghini, it was the first show car or the first manifestation of what the brand could become with the leadership that I had in Lamborghini. We were using all the Y shapes and shapes of the Terzo Millennio in several cars from the Revuelto to the Temerario. I had the feeling a few years ago that we should move ahead. 

We started with an intern and Saša Čudić, senior lead exterior designer, who created the first idea and the first little model. Because we had other projects to work on like the Lanzador and the Fenomeno, we left this model for a few years. It was always my dream to make it full size, but a full size model has a certain cost, so I was waiting for the right moment. 

CDN: Why does the Manifesto not have a specific powertrain? 

MB: We didn’t want to give any statement of the engine. When you see the car from the front or rear view, it’s like a catamaran. There’s no engine theoretically foreseen because the Terzo Millennio was born in the period of electrification, so I wanted to give this optimism that those cars could look cool. Here we wanted to concentrate on the sheer beauty of the sculpture with no discussion of electric or combustion, just a sheer celebration of shape. 

At the end of the day, the Countach LP500 from ‘71 was not the first Lamborghini but it was the first Lamborghini containing the DNA lines that according to Walter de Silva, according to all the designers who worked here before me, I understood this to be the essence of Lamborghini. But we are not doing a copy of the past, we always do an interpretation looking into the future and I think you can see this with the Fenomeno and especially with the Manifesto. It’s celebrating the basic shape of the Countach without looking at all retro, it’s a sculpture of the future. 

CDN: Where do you see Lamborghini in 20 years?

MB: Over the next 20 years we’ll always see the sculpture of Lamborghini. For sure, if there’s the 40th anniversary of Centro Stile, there would be hopefully the same silhouette as a character, but of course with another interpretation. I hope that all the designers that work here in the future will understand the importance of that main sculpture. When you see all the cars we’ve designed, you can really understand this creative power potential that Lamborghini has. For me, it’s always creating goosebumps.