Sixty. That’s how many Lamborghini LM002s were built to U.S. specification. One of them just surfaced on Bring a Trailer out of San Diego, wearing arctic camouflage and carrying a Countach V-12 under its hood like a dare.
The 1990 LM002 — nicknamed the Rambo Lambo for reasons that become obvious the moment you see it — predates the Urus by three decades and about a million units of common sense. Where the Urus is a refined, mass-produced profit machine that Lamborghini churns out by the thousands, the LM002 was born from a failed military contract, a couple of ill-conceived mid-engine prototypes, and the kind of 1980s excess that produced both Wall Street and shoulder pads.
This particular truck shows roughly 17,000 miles. Canepa Motorsports — the gold standard for exotic car restoration — went through it in 2019, a job that ran $32,000. The suspension was refreshed just last month by a European marques specialist.
The Pirelli Scorpion tires are five years old, which matters more than most buyers realize. Low-mileage collector vehicles routinely ride on rubber old enough to vote. Cracked, hardened tires on a 444-horsepower truck with three locking differentials is a recipe for a very expensive afternoon.
The LM002’s origin story reads like a Lamborghini fever dream. The company first built the Cheetah prototype with an American V-8, hoping to win a military contract or sell to oil exploration outfits. The engine sat behind the cabin, mid-mounted, and engineers figured out quickly that was a terrible idea for an off-road vehicle.
The LM001 followed with the same layout and the same problems. By the time the LM002 arrived, they’d moved the engine up front and pivoted hard toward the civilian luxury market — air conditioning, leather everywhere, optional sand tires for the Middle Eastern royalty who became the truck’s core clientele.
The 5.2-liter V-12 sits in the nose, mated to a five-speed manual and a two-speed transfer case. Four-wheel drive is standard. Three locking differentials give the truck legitimate off-road capability, though vanishingly few owners have ever pointed one at anything more treacherous than a valet stand.
Lamborghini built just over 300 LM002s total. The final 60, wearing U.S.-spec tweaks like 17-inch OZ alloy wheels and additional trim, represented the end of a production run that was never meant to be long. This is an endangered species in every sense — a truck from an era when Lamborghini was still a small, financially fragile company making wild bets, not a VW Group subsidiary printing money with crossovers.
The contrast with the modern Urus tells you everything about where the luxury SUV market has gone. The Urus is fast, capable, and thoroughly engineered to offend no one. It shares a platform with the Bentley Bentayga, the Porsche Cayenne, and the Audi Q8. It is a very good vehicle, and it is also a committee product, built to sell in volume and pad the bottom line so Lamborghini can keep making supercars.
The LM002 was none of those things. It was a military reject turned luxury oddity, powered by a screaming V-12 borrowed from one of the most dangerous supercars ever made, wrapped in a body that looked like it should be parked outside a dictator’s palace. It didn’t make financial sense then and it barely makes sense now.
The auction closes March 13. Whoever buys this thing won’t be getting practical transportation. They’ll be getting a rhinoceros — big, loud, and completely unreasonable. That used to be what Lamborghini did best.
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