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At the 1976 Geneva Motor Show, Automobili Lamborghini SpA unveiled their next chapter in the V8 line, after three versions of the Urraco, the Silhouette was introduced, also known as the P3000, because of the 3-liter V8 engine behind the seats, borrowed from the Urraco P300.

The Lamborghini Silhouette was much more than an Urraco with a removable roof above the two seats, specially created to boost sales in the United States market and try to take some market share from the Porsche 911 Targa that was introduced in late 1967.

Some sources state the Lamborghini Silhouette was created to compete with the Ferrari 308 GTS, but the latter was only shown at the 1977 Frankfurt Auto Show, about 18 months later, so that was not the case, Ferruccio just asked Bertone to do a facelift on the Urraco as Lamborghini as a company was in no condition to develop a new V8 model at that time.

The Lamborghini Silhouette almost looked like an Urraco on steroids, featuring a deep front spoiler, angular wheel arch extensions, and massive wheels with the five-hole, telephone-dial design we would later see on the Countach S in a different size.

For the Silhouette they fitted massive 285mm wide Pirelli P7 tires on a 15-inch tall wheel, 11-inch wide at the rear, which required a modified suspension geometry to keep those wider tires as flat as possible on the pavement.

The 3-liter V8 engine was taken from the Urraco P300, but power was increased to 265 bhp (from 250 bhp on the Urraco) to counteract the additional weight on the Silhouette to keep the chassis stiff enough without a roof in place, so the Silhouette was still a rather capable smaller sibling to the Countach in the late Seventies.

Sadly the Lamborghini Silhouette just couldn't deliver on the high hopes when it came to sales figures, mainly because they were never able to certify the car for the US market, between 1977 and 1982, not a single Lamborghini was officially imported into the USA, only grey-market cars managed to get into the US.

In the end, the Lamborghini Silhouette was only built for two years, between 1977 and 1979, with just 52 units made in total, of which rumor has it only 30 or so still remain today, making the Silhouette a very rare car ... in 1981 a successor would be shown in Geneva, the Jalpa.

The scale model

So it will come as no surprise that we don't have many scale models of this older, rather unknown V8 model from Sant'Agata, a few 1/43 scale models are available, but until now not a single 1/18 could be found ... Kyosho came to the rescue, with not one, but two shades on this beautiful classic V8, I show you the white one, a red one is already on order, which should arrive in a few weeks.

This specific Kyosho model comes in their sealed resin series, inside a box that is remarkably similar to the older GT-Spirit boxes ... most likely these models are still being made by the same factory anyway, but that also means that nothing opens, the wheels don't turn, and the front wheels don't steer either, sadly enough, you can't even remove the roof panel, something KK-Scale managed to do on their Lamborghini Jalpa model.

So finally we are able to add a Lamborghini Silhouette on a 1/18 scale to our collection, and while it's not an all-opening, €300 AUTOart model, this sealed Kyosho is still a very nice model sitting on the shelve, just don't expect too much from it, despite the asking price above €200 in most online shops, it a nice model, not a great model.

Don't get me wrong, I couldn't be happier being able to add this white Lamborghini Silhouette to my collection, similar to the real Silhouette I saw at the factory museum many years ago, and I couldn't resist putting her in between the green Urraco from Kyosho and the red Jalpa from KK-Scale to form a V8 TriColore set ... but that Jalpa costs just €80, this Kyosho costs almost triple that, but it sure isn't three times as nice, that's all.

Originally released in June 2025.

our RATING

Exterior		9/10
Interior		8/10
Engine	Not visible
Accuracy		9/10
Overall rating		9/10

Original price on June 4, 2025 : € 172