You just don’t see weird supercars anymore. You see ugly ones, and shouty ones, and beautiful ones, but nothing that just kind of makes you, you know, tilt your head a bit. The Lamborghini Pregunta, much like the Spanish word for which it’s named, invites questions. Like, “Was this built before or after the Pagani Zonda? and, incidentally, “How much will this fetch at auction?” when it crosses the block next month.
The Pregunta concept predates the Zonda but not the Lotec C1000, and it kind of looks like a cross between both, with its oddly arranged circular lamps, silver paint, and the proportions of a wedge. But the Pregunta is more bulbous than those Mercedes-powered machines and also technically older, because under the skin, it’s really a Diablo.
For the Pregunta, Lamborghini turned to French coachbuilder Carrosserie Heuliez and, specifically, designer Marc Deschamps, to reshape the Diablo in the image of a Dassault fighter jet, built from carbon fiber. If the exterior was futuristic, with its soft and clean, yet amorphous presence, then the interior was otherworldly. I love a blue cabin, but the pattern of the dash looks like the upholstery of a Greyhound bus from Neptune. Apparently, that’s the display for a rearview camera just under the windshield there; how far we’ve come.
Though Diablo-based, the Pregunta’s 5.7-liter V12 had a higher output than that of any production Diablo up to that point, with 530 horsepower and 446 lb-ft of torque sent to the rear axle. It was mated to a five-speed manual, which might date the car even more than its exterior. The one-of-one Pregunta claimed just a single private owner in the past two decades, according to Broad Arrow Auctions, which is managing the concept’s sale. It’s expected to rake in as much as $4 million when it goes to a new home on October 10 in Belgium.
The Pregunta was the final product of Megatech-owned Lamborghini, before the brand was purchased by Audi. The Lamborghini that followed had its edges sanded off a bit; it was a little more presentable, a little more professional, and a little less weird. By the time the Pregunta debuted at the 1998 Paris Motor Show, Audi had been running things for about a month. Little did anyone know that the future it teased wouldn’t really ever come to pass.
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Backed by a decade of covering cars and consumer tech, Adam Ismail is a Senior Editor at The Drive, focused on curating and producing the site’s slate of daily stories.
