FIRST LOOK 1 3m Diablo Restomod Reboots 90s Greatest Lambo

This is the Eccentrica Diablo, not so much a car as a mic drop on four wheels. I mean, I mean, look at it. Look at it. Look at this light. I love those trees, those farmhouses. I love I love Italy and only this country can produce a car as gorgeous as that. Eccentrica, it means off centre and it's the creation of San Marino based entrepreneur, Lamborghini collector and racing driver Emanuele Colombini. He remembers seeing the original Diablo in Italian car magazine Quattroruote when he was a kid, seduced as we all were by its savage beauty and thunderous V12. But the Diablo was also well named. It could be mad, bad and dangerous to know. Lamborghini's ownership was in flux throughout the 90s and the Diablo made it to market on a wing and a prayer. It didn't even have power steering to begin with and its brakes wouldn't stop a shopping trolley. There was room for improvement, which is what Lamborghini did throughout the 90s. The all wheel drive VT version. Well, that tamed the handling. The anniversary special SE30 was very purple, but cool. There was a Jota, an SV, a GT and a GTR. And now Eccentrica is taking modern technology to give us this remarkable restomod, the Diablo that could have and probably should have been all along. Podium Advanced Technologies, who are a few hundred kilometres up the autostrada in Turin, they worked on Audi's Dakar machine. They developed Jim Glickenhaus's Le Mans car. They did the Amos Integrale, the Porsche 928 Nardone reimagining. They're doing the engineering on this thing. Lamborghini's former chief technical officer, Maurizio Reggiani, he's consulting on it. I joined Lamborghini in 1995, he told Top Gear, in the middle of the Diablo lifecycle at the time of the SV, but never had the opportunity to work on the very first variation. With Eccentrica, it feels like I've now got the chance to close the circle of my work with the And the design? Well, that's the work of the highly regarded Milanese agency Borromeo Di Silva. The GT and GTR are the jumping off point in terms of stance and attitude. The front and rear track are wider. There's more sculpture in the front end and this on the front wing or fender, if you're watching in North America. Well, these are called the Diablo horns. Yeah, that's a cool touch. And of course, everybody loves pop-up headlamps, but unfortunately, they're no longer legal. Boo. But Eccentrica have got round that because this car has got pop-down lamps. Very nice. And a very special little function, this car will wink at passers-by. I mean, look at that. I mean, I was going to say that the grille at the front here is 3D printed in that Eccentrica, which means off-centre. Well, as you can see, the logo is off-centre and even the tow hook, which on some versions of this car is referred to as the gold tooth. I mean, that stuff is all cool and you can see the daytime running lights, but it's a car that winks at you. Crazy. Oh, thanks very much. These wheels are reminiscent of the GTR's Speedline wheels. The body panels are all in prepreg carbon fibre, carbon fibre door mirror, scissor doors, of course. Diablo is always about theatre. They've just added more. And it's also a car that's shape is defined by what's missing. I think they call it porosity these days, but the NACA duct reworked greenhouse in this car as well. And look at these air intakes and these air scoops, which brings us to the engine. Oh, he doesn't love an exposed engine bay, especially when there's a 5.7 litre V12 to look at. It's good for almost 550 brake horsepower, something like 443 pounds foot of torque. Check out the carbon fibre intake plenum. There's so much on this engine. I do passionately believe that internal combustion engines can look like pieces of art or sculpture in themselves. And clearly the guys at Centrica think that as well. Carbon fibre intake plenum, there's new valve train, new camshafts, amazing Capristo exhaust system. This whole section around the rear is just, it really is like a work of art. This is obviously generates a lot of heat. So there's a heat shield here, which they've nicknamed the teppanyaki, which is if you're into Japanese food, you'll know what a teppanyaki is. It's like a hot griddle. The chassis is the same steel space frame as the original Diablo, but with bonded carbon fibre reinforcement. So passive safety is improved. It'll feel a lot stiffer. There's a modern ECU in the engine. There's traction control. There are Brembo brakes, 380 millimetre discs at the front, so much better than on the original car. Basically, it's a Diablo that'll handle. Now I'm going to be honest here. I've met Emanuele Colombini, the man who's bankrolling the Centrica, and this is his personal car. Emanuele is a slender Italian gentleman. He can probably fit in this car. I can't really. It's a real squeeze. The pedal box isn't great. The seat angle isn't great. The driving position, typical Italian driving position. Look at the angle of the steering wheel. These are all idiosyncrasies, if we're being polite. It's all fine for Emanuele. Probably annoy me. Otherwise, I love what they've done with the interior. They've given it a... Well, actually, the digital display, it's much more of an 80s thing, as you can see, which is curious, I think. It's kind of like a Knight Rider sort of inspiration and various other TV programmes and pop culture influences, but from the 80s rather than the 90s. It's almost going for something that exists in our memory, but never actually existed for real. I think they call that the Mandela effect. Quite curious. We also love the treatment of the open gate and the gear lever and these toggle switches, one of which operates the nose lift. Note also the rotary dial for the chassis modes. It does have Apple CarPlay, but as you can see, there's no screen. It's actually accessed via what looks like the rear view mirror, which isn't really a rear view mirror. It's a display screen for Apple CarPlay, but also a rear view camera. That is good because when I was younger and thinner, I do remember driving a Diablo in central London and I still have PTSD from trying to reverse parallel park that in the middle of that city. I'm sure that echoing sound I can hear is the laughter of the people who were watching me at the time. It's cool in here, though. Just wish I could fit into it. Now, that came at the end of the car's life and was probably the most complete version of it, but Lamborghini's then new German owners still didn't go to the depths that a Centrica has. Plus, it didn't have pop-up headlights. And now, while Lamborghini is arguably creating its best ever cars from the Revuelto to the Urus SE hybrid to the brand new Temerario, well, they're great, but they're all hybrids, which for a certain well-heeled niche just isn't what they want from their raging bull. And that's where this car comes in. The Centrica Diablo costs 1.35 million euros plus local taxes and the donor car. Now, this is obviously a pretty hefty chunk of change, but they're only going to make 19 of these. And the 2024 makeover has been done with passion, humour and real engineering skill. And you just know that if you turned up in one of these anywhere, you would upstage, well, everything. Oh, and Maurizio Reggiani also hinted to Top Gear that a Centrica might just turn its hand to the Brescia Allegro next. Oh, imagine that!