Lamborghini
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GT1 Lamborghini Murcielago LP640
My GT1 inspired Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 set a new benchmark for the daftest build I’ve ever done. It’s been more than two years in the making, with more complex engineering and styling hurdles to overcome than any car I’ve built in the past.
My favourite of all R-GT cars ever seen is the pre-livery GT1 Le Mans spec car build in dark metallic grey seen at Salzburgring testing in 2007.
It started life as one of the very first UK delivered LP640 E-Gear Murcielagos in 2006. I bought it used, tired and in need of a lot of attention. The first incarnation of the build was just to remove the disgusting Verde Ithica green it had been painted in, repaint in a flay grey & get it working mechanically.
The real build started in 2018. At that point I was probably responsible for 50% of all views of R-GT Murcielagos on YouTube. I was having the usual Egear issues, so I convinced myself that we could manual convert the existing E-Gear gearbox. I was also having issues with the quad throttle bodies, so I figured I ‘needed’ to convert to a fully independent throttle body setup. Having Craig next door to us at Dynotorque is always dangerous when it comes to ideas like this, as he’s pretty much always game.
Featured Video
The official showcase video of our GT1 inspired Murcielago
Filmed and edited by our buddy Al Clark from Outrun. It's the poshest video we've ever had of any of our cars.
GT1 Le Mans edition was the plan
My favourite of all R-GT cars ever seen is the pre-livery GT1 Le Mans spec car build in dark metallic grey seen at Salzburgring testing in 2007. This to me was one of the best looking racecars I’d ever seen. So as we’d started the mechanical side of the work at Dynotorqe, I was talking with Reiter Engineering about body panels. I’d massively struggled with communication initially. I’m sure they thought I was a time-waster as fitting R-GT race car panels to a road car just isn’t possible. I persisted though, and eventually managed to purchase the actual very battered body panels from the 2008 Interprogressbank Le Mans car.
The first test fit, just removing the standard front bumper and placing the GT1 version in place told me everything I needed to know about what needed to happen to make this work. It sat about 20cm off the floor. My car had already been lowered as much as possible and the tyres were already contacting the door hinges.
So, the chopping and fabrication started to reposition the door hinges and give us the vertical tyre clearance we needed. On the race car it’s easy, they use a small piano hinge. I wanted to keep the standard doors and trim though, so it needed to be extremely heavy duty.
The new extremely low ride height also determined that we had to completely redesign the front suspension with a drop knuckle, custom upper and lower arms, and a shock that passed through the top arm to mount to the lower arm instead of mounting the upper arm.
Bodywork for days!
The car was at TJR Bodywork for 14 months to create the final look. There is way too much for me to write down about what we’ve done. But essentially making race panels fit a road car and look right is a huge task. There was so much fabrication that needed doing just on the bits you don’t see. Then completely redesigning the door to front wing, the wings themselves, blending the R-GT and standard LP640 sideskirts, making our own design wider rear quarters, and so so SO much more.
The wheels are completely custom-made by 3SDM. The centre of each rear 3pc wheel is machined from a 125kg billet slug of aluminium. The fronts are forged monoblock.
Huge thanks to our team at Driftworks plus Dynotorque, TJRBodyworx, Emerald & 3SDM Wheels for dealing with my extremely difficult requests/challenges.
Photo Gallery
Video Playlist
Driftworks GT1 Murcielago Playlist
Complete GT1 inspired Murcielago build YouTube playlist. We've rounded up all of the build videos into a playlist so you can see exactly what's involved in building a car like this.
Specifications
Power 686BHP
Weight 1600KGS
Torque 600 ft/lbs
Rev Limit 8500
Year 2006
Quick Stats
Phil Morrison's Lamborghini Murcielago
A road car inspired by the legendary Reiter Engineering R-GT GT1 race car
- Power 686 bhp
- Lowness 100 %
- Handling 75 %
- Rareness 9 / 10
- Cylinders 12
Highest Wins
Engine
- 6.5 litre V12
- Custom ITB intake and carbon velocity stacks
- R-GT GT1 Manifolds / Headers
Drivetrain
- 6spd Manual converted gearbox
- Custom RWD conversion
Interior
- Recaro SPGs, custom frames
- Nardi Personal Grinta Steering Wheel
- Custom hub and Driftworks quick release
Chassis
- Re-engineered door hinge mechanism
Wheels / Tyres
- 3SDM Custom Wheels 19x10.5 and 20x13j
Brakes
- Stock LP640 Carbon Ceramic
Suspension / Steering
- Completely custom front suspension.
Electronics / Fueling
- Twin Emerald ECU's
- Twin Bosche 044
Exterior
- GT1 LeMans R-GT aero package - Front bumper, wings, rear bumper, sideskirts
- LeMans spec carbon GT wing and diffuser
- Custom carbon rear decklid
- Custom widebody rear quarters
This car has been a long time in the making. I always forget some part of the build in my videos, so if you have any questions please fire away.
needs more pictures! looks sick man!
the concave on that rear wheels are jaw dropping! god damnit I am jealous
Cheers 🙂
Love it, great work, can you get some pictures of it alongside a standard car at some point in the future?
That’s the plan! 🙂
I need to change my comment about getting pictures with a standard car. It looks like you’re going to have to raise the game again, you now need a video of your car, a standard car and Luc Donckerwolke there in person!! From his email I think he’d be up for it.
Can we see a more in depth vlog Phil? And some fly bys? Burnout? Haha! But beautiful car your mind and ideas put together with some talented people made something really unique!
This is just the start, don’t worry 🙂
Stunning car. Are you always gonna have to drive it with the front lift up as its kinda low and well…British roads ‘n’ all.
Cheers. It will be a challenge dodging pot holes for sure. It has some protection on the splitter, but it will no doubt take a beating.
This car stopped me in my tracks, Jesus! Any higher res photos for backgrounds?
We’ll be working on some specific desktop backgrounds this week hopefully.
It’s Beauty and The Beast.
Phil you must be insanely proud of what you and the gang have achieved with this work of art.
Indeed I am 🙂
Whatever the car version of Game of Thrones is, Phill just won it.
I’m speechless really
Absolute insanity! Fairplay and well done to those involved, it looks mental.
Cheers 🙂
Un-fu**ing-believable. Literally the only word I can think of to describe what my eyes feel. Giving it a 9/10 for rareness is underselling it a bit don’t you think? There is literally 1 in the world! But even more impressive is the mods you’ve done, the hours put into the vision you initially had for it and the wife for putting up with all of it ? Seriously though Phil you killed me with the short visual on that release video of it, I saw 1:56 and almost cried ?. Honestly can’t wait for a grass roots video of you just talking about everything you’ve done in a belter of a YouTube release. Thank you for giving all us car guys n gals something amazing to lust over both visually and technically. Thank you to everyone involved who clearly had the same passion as you to help produce this monster and thanks to Gaz’s finger tip skin that has long gone due to sanding it all ?. Now fix that exhaust on the E30 from burning the bumper ??
Thanks Ste, much appreciated. Hopefully you enjoyed the walkaround video I posted on Saturday https://youtu.be/xuLNNlGGLdE
Well that’s going to shut down Coventry ring road! Do I sense a Germany trip coming up? Maybe Belgium?
Haha, I do want to visit Reiter Engineering in it at some point (via the Nurburgring obviously)
Perfection at its best. BZ and kudos to you all.
seems the video playlist section has broke as it just errors out, while we’re there it might be a good idea to change the layout of the youtube channel to include the reveal video as the channel’s trailer + add the LP640 build as one of the featured playlists to get a little more traffic as it’s criminal how underrated this thing is considering how much effort went into it and how amazing it looks
i washed you show it live
i like you clio my brother luke kindred has a clio he buys your stuff do you now him please could you get bac to me many thanks phil
Hi Phil
I’ve watched this and the channel for years, I was just updating my wallpaper as my 9 year old daughter said I should change a green porsche RWB to a lambo.
I instantly thought of your as the perfect answer!…however I cant find any bigger resolution photos (2560×1440), are they about online anyway?