Driving The Lamborghini LM002 Is Even More Amazing And Terrible Than You Expect

Lamborghini built just 301 LM002s across the world during its production run, yet in my mind, it's one of the most important vehicles ever made. It served as a precursor for the super SUVs we take for granted today, and in a lot of ways it actually exceeds them. Between a magical Countach-sourced V12, the chunkiest tires you ever did see and a boxy shape that would make even the biggest cubism fan bite their lips, the LM002 set such an impossibly high standard for what a super SUV should be that no other brand has reached.

Sure, many have tried to make a vehicle like the LM002, combining big power with a good amount of space and a lot of capability, but every brand is just chasing the high the LM002 reached. Of course, in just about every measurable and objective way, a modern super SUV is a far better product than the LM002, but the second you get in, turn the crappy plastic key and hear the engine roar to life, nothing else in the world matters.

Full Disclosure: Lamborghini flew me out to Italy, put me up in two wonderful hotels and fed me some of the best food in the world all so I could sample the 2025 Urus SE and an original LM002.

Driving an LM002 requires you to be two things: strong and brave. I'm not really either, but I'm a good enough actor to pull it off. Without a doubt in my mind, the way the LM002 drives is also the biggest departure from the super SUVs and trucks of today. Build quality and usability are a close second and third, but no one cares about stuff like that anyway, right? The LM002 I was given a go in was built in 1989 and delivered in 1990, so it was one of the last cars off the production line.

You've got to be strong because every single component and piece of hardware on this car is heavier and stiffer than semi-dry cement. The power-assisted steering wheel asks you to put your goddamn back into it if you want to make the massive 345/60R17 Pirelli Scorpion tires turn left or right. Matters are not helped by the steering wheel being small even for a modern car, and placed at a bad angle. If it was any bigger my thighs and fat ass probably wouldn't fit right.

You're going to be steering a lot, too. Just to keep the 5,720-pound LM002 pointed straight requires a lot of input. Oh, and God forbid you've got to make some sort of K-turn. With a steering radius about as big as a cruise ship, your three-point turns quickly reach an amount of forward and reverse maneuvers that make you wonder if numbers this high actually exist. I was forced to do a sloped K-turn in a tiny European alley that was about three feet wider than the LM002 itself. It was like that one scene in "Austin Powers," but the very nice Italian Lamborghini reps in the car with me said I did "very good," so I'll take it.

That maneuver also shed light on what's possibly the most difficult thing about driving the LM002 — its pedal box, and more specifically, its clutch. Oh, my God. I've driven cars with heavy clutches before. This was like something from a different planet. By the time I arrived back after my short drive, my leg felt nearly numb. I mean, it was completely worth it, but if you want to buy your own LM002 you can't ever skip leg day. It's not like the gas and brake pedal were faultless, either. You've got to absolutely mash the brakes to get any sort of stopping power, and the throttle requires a similar aggressive press. It works almost like an on/off switch. You get nothing, and then all the sudden that massive 5.2-liter V12 roars and the revs climb faster than you might expect. It's honestly sort of startling, but I'm sure it would be very helpful in aggressively driving through Italian traffic.

Andy Kalmowitz / Jalopnik

More on that engine, though. What a piece of art. Famously, the LM002 borrowed its engine from the Countach, pumping out 444 horsepower and 368 pound-feet of torque. Today that's nothing, but in 1986? It was unprecedented. All of that power is routed through a slightly crunchy dog-leg five-speed manual gearbox to a beefy four-wheel-drive system. I know that this car is a Lamborghini, but it is deeply slow. When it was new, the 0-to-60-mph time was about 7.7 seconds. Today, a Toyota Prius will best it by nearly seven-tenths of a second, but you won't give a damn about that.

What really surprised me was the LM002's relatively compact size. It comes in at 188.6 inches long and 78 inches wide, which means this seemingly massive truck is only 2.7 inches longer and 4.3 inches wider than a brand-new BMW X3, and that's not exactly a large vehicle, is it? Certainly, the Lambo's upright blockiness adds to the visual size of the car, but if you ignore how cumbersome the controls can be, it's not terribly difficult to maneuver.

Andy Kalmowitz / Jalopnik

Driving the LM002 is like nothing else on earth, for better or worse. It makes you feel so special and on top of the world that you wonder how you could possibly go the rest of your life without driving one ever again. I know some people say "Never meet your heroes," but those people are fools. It's so brilliantly over-the-top and such a sensory overload that you won't care that it reeks of gasoline, your right leg is being cooked by the transmission tunnel and you don't fit very well. None of that matters because the LM002 demands both your love and respect in equal measures.

Today, the idea of these super SUVs is pretty commonplace. I mean there are at least 10 to choose from between the Lamborghini Urus SE, Bentley Bentayga, Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT E-Hybrid, Aston Martin DBX707, Ferrari Purosangue, Audi RS Q8, the damn Ram 1500 TRX, plus various other super-fast EVs and crossovers, but this wasn't always the case. Far from it, in fact.

Before the LM002 came around, sports cars were sports cars and SUVs were SUVs. Never the two shall meet. That all changed with Lamborghini's failed military transport vehicle, and the car world is all the better for it — unless you're not a fan of big, fast cars, which you should be. Only the Italians would think to do something as bonkers as sticking the V12 from a supercar into the front engine bay of an off-road SUV.

By all accounts, the LM002 was a pretty big flop. Lamborghini only built 301 of them between 1986 and 1990 (and one in 1994 made up of spare parts). At the same time, more traditional SUVs like the Range Rover and Jeep Grand Wagoneer sold like hotcakes. Obviously, they were much cheaper, but that isn't the point. What this really shows is that Lamborghini was well ahead of its time with the LM002. Fast forward to 20 years after production of the truck ended, and super SUVs are all the rage. Just about every manufacturer is already putting big power into high-riding SUVs, or at least is planning to. Hell, Lamborghini engineers even did it themselves after a decades-long hiatus, with the Urus hitting showroom floors in 2018.

Is there any real crossover between the LM002 and the Urus? Not really. I mean, these cars are miles apart when it comes to comfort, ergonomics, speed, usability and a billion other things, but that DNA is still there. At the end of the day, these are both big, fast (for their respective times), expensive super SUVs. To be honest, just about every single big-power SUV owes its life to the LM002.

There's a real argument to be made that the Lamborghini LM002 is one of the most influential and important vehicles in our current automotive landscape despite the fact it sold in such small numbers. Lamborghini saw the future back in 1986, and everyone else is just now catching up.

You can feel this car's heavy historical weight in the way it drives, the way you communicate with it. To most people who don't know anything about cars, the LM002 is just some ugly box from the latter years of the Reagan Administration when money was cheap and coke was even cheaper, but for people who know what the LM002 represents, it's one of the most fantastic cars in the world — even if you smell like gasoline when you get out.

Lamborghini