This is a Lamborghini V12 with a displacement of 5.7 liters that was reportedly soured from a 1990s-era Diablo. As you can see, it’s currently in pieces and will require a full rebuild.
Once it’s been rebuilt and it’s back in full running order, this engine should be capable of approximately 485 bhp and 428 lb ft of torque. When fitted to the original Diablo it could propel the car onto a top speed of 325 km/h (202 mph).
This is Giotto Bizzarrini in 1966, a few years after he developed the Lamborghini V12. By this time he was developing his own car, the Bizzarrini Iso Grifo you can see behind him in this image. Image courtesy of Bizzarrini S.p.A.A History Speedrun: The Lamborghini V12
The Lamborghini V12 is now remembered as one of the most enduring production car engines ever made, and the most long-lived V12 ever designed – outlasting even the Ferrari Colombo V12.
The only reason the Lamborghini V12 came into being is that Ferruccio Lamborghini owned a number of Ferraris and had an argument with Enzo Ferrari about one of them – it’s one of the most over-told stories in the world of motordom – and it ended with Enzo telling Ferruccio to stick to designing tractors and leave the cars to him.
This so insulted Ferruccio that he embarked on what would become probably the greatest act of retribution in automotive history – founding Automobili Lamborghini, hiring a team of brilliant engineers, and developing a car that was faster than anything Ferrari had on offer at the time – the Miura.
One of these engineers would be Giotto Bizzarrini, a man who had worked for Alfa Romeo initially before moving to Ferrari where he became Chief Engineer. At Ferrari he would work on the 250 TR Testa Rossa, the 250 GT 2+2/GTE, the 250GT SWB, and perhaps most memorably, the Ferrari 250 GTO.
After a disagreement with Enzo Ferrari, Bizzarrini would end up working for Ferruccio Lamborghini developing an all-new V12 engine. Ferruccio offered him a bonus for every unit of horsepower the new engine could produce over the Ferrari V12.
This is the production line of the Lamborghini V12 that was used in the Diablo, you can see the cars being built in the background. Image courtesy of Automobili Lamborghini.Bizzarrini would develop a new V12 with a displacement of 3.5 liters, it would have a block and heads made from aluminum alloy, double overhead cams per bank, and early prototypes could produce as much as 370 bhp at 9,000 rpm.
Bizzarrini wanted to keep pushing for 400 bhp at 11,000 rpm, however by the time the road-going version of the engine was ready it was turning out a more modest 280 bhp.
The Lamborghini V12 would remain in production for almost 50 years, from 1963 right the way through until 2010. The final production car it would be fitted to would be the Lamborghini Murciélago LP 670-4 SuperVeloce, where it had a displacement of 6.5 liters and it was producing 661 bhp.
The Lamborghini V12 Project Engine Shown Here
The engine you see here is a disassembled unit that’s said to have come from a Lamborghini Diablo. It has a displacement of 5.7 liters and as you would expect it has double overhead cams per bank, four valves per cylinder, and an alloy block and heads.
When it was released in 1990 and remained on sale until 2001. It was one of the most desirable supercars in the world during the 1990s, and a worthy successor to the legendary Lamborghini Countach. Image courtesy of Automobili Lamborghini.The eBay listing for this engine notes that it has had replacement sleeves fitted, cylinder head mounting studs are fitted to the aluminum crankcase, and it comes with the crankshaft, pistons, connecting rods, camshafts, and valve covers.
The engine is now being offered for sale out of Los Angeles, California on eBay by Titch Auto with. Buy It Now price of $21,000 USD. If you’d like to read more about it or enquire about buying it you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of Titch Auto + Automobili Lamborghini
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
