1982 - 1988 Lamborghini Jalpa
Posted by David Kinney
Almost any casual car fan can remember the remarkable V12 Lamborghinis of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, as the first time you saw a Miura or a Countach is likely permanently etched in your mind. Not so with the V8 Lambos (”They built V8s?”), as the visual appeal of the bigger cars tends to leave the less exciting Urraco, Silhouette and Jalpa behind.
But even if the Lamborghini V8s are stuck playing character actor roles to the V12 stars, the Jalpa stands as a better car than you might realize. Putting it into a dollar perspective, you can buy one today for far less than a bad Mopar muscle car.
Lamborghini has rarely, if ever, had a stable financial history, and the early 1980s were among the most tumultuous of times for the company. When the Mimram brothers purchased the firm in 1981, the Countach was already growing long in the tooth, and even though sales were strong, there was little money for additional development of the model, and doubtless less for bringing new ones to market.
It was in this environment that the Jalpa was born, as an update of Lambo’s V8 Silhouette. The Silhouette had been well accepted at introduction, and even though few were made, it was acknowledged to be a big step forward from the earlier Urraco.
With styling from Bertone, the Jalpa hit the circuit at the 1981 Geneva auto show, a full year before it went into production. The cost of bringing the Jalpa to market was without a doubt much less than developing a new model from scratch, and it far outsold its predecessor, with just over 400 produced before bowing out in 1988.
If the Silhouette was a more refined car that was easier to live with, the Jalpa was an even greater improvement. One of the benefits of a third-generation design is that the Jalpa had a well laid-out dash and console, and build quality was as good as had been seen on any Lamborghini at the time. With chain-driven camshafts, rather than the dreaded rubber, fabric, or bubble gum-based timing belts found on some other Italian exotics, the 3.5-liter V8 developed a reputation for both long life and fewer visits to dealer service bays.
As proof, I’ll offer the recollections of former Jalpa owner Bob Haroutunian, a businessman acquaintance of mine based in Washington, D.C.: “I bought my 1986 Jalpa used in 1986 with 1,000 km on the clock and drove it as my daily driver for 12 years, adding 65,000 km. Over this time it was a very predictable, very drivable car. I treated it as you would a regular car, and despite the horror stories you occasionally hear, none of them applied to my experience.”
(From the June 2005 issue of Sports Car Market magazine.)