This story unfolded more than a decade ago but perhaps it’s not a bad thing that these US soldiers blew up one of the vehicles from Lamborghini’s first (unfortunate) foray into the SUV market (the brand did build an all-terrain, military vehicle prototype known as ‘The Cheetah’ in 1977 that never got produced).
However, with the SUV market flourishing and some other traditional sports car bands, such as Maserati with the Levante SUV, looking at a slice of the pie, Lamborghini will be giving it another go with a sportier SUV, the Urus, which is expected next year.
Here’s a look back at what befell one of the only 300 Lamborghini LM002s ever built. On July 18, 2004, American soldiers at a USA military base near Baqubah, Iraq used this Lamborghini LM002 (powered by a Countach V12 engine) once owned by Uday Hussein, one of Saddam Hussein’s sons, to simulate the effects of a V.B.IE.D. (Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device).
Unaware that the car was so rare the soldiers packed it with explosives and blew it up to pieces.