Eccentrica V12 Coupe Is Your Phoenix Rose Gold Dream

The Lamborghini Diablo was made from 1990 through 2001, and while
it was truly a thing of beauty and a joy forever, it had a few shortcomings.

Designer and racer Emmanuel Columbini, when he was but a boy, first saw it in the Italian magazine QuattroRoute.

“You may know there was this beautiful first page with a red Diablo, and he always dreamed about it,” said Andrea Colombo, co-founder of Eccentrica, which reimagines the Diablo with numerous modern touches that address its original shortcoming.

“So when we started building the collection, he bought the Diablo, he bought other cars, and then he bought the Diablo GT.”

Now Columbini is not only a designer, he’s also a pilot, a GT3 driver, and a (Lamborghini) Super Trofeo racer. And he naturally saw where the car could be improved upon.

“You know, there is so much difference between the first generation and the last Diablo, the Diablo GT, that he couldn’t believe it,” said Columbo. “So we started to say, he started saying that ‘Never meet your hero,’ because when you dream about a car and then you sit in a real Diablo and experience some of the problems and some of the limitations you say, ‘Okay, I can do my own Diablo.”

And that’s what you see here, the Eccentrica V12.

Eccentrica heavily re-engineered the 5.7-liter naturally aspirated V12 to make 550 horsepower and 443 lb-ft of torque, about a 10 percent increase from stock. There’s a gated, six-speed close-ratio manual, too, as well as a completely redone interior and a wide body in carbon fiber. The whole rig will get to 62 mph in 3.8 seconds and top speed is 208 mph.

Off we went.

At first you cling to your memories of driving the original back in the ‘90s, and maybe you think, “It won’t be much.” You recall that the original Diablo was big and heavy. It seemed like 90 percent of its weight was
that 5.7-liter V12 engine. It went very nicely in a straight line but you recall that it couldn’t turn very well.

We all carry prejudices and warped memories.

Then you get on the throttle of the new one, the $1.5 million(!) Eccentrica. You wonder, “Who has this kind of money to throw around and could they lend me five quid till Tuesday?” Stepping out to pass a Jetta (of all things), the response is not all that impressive. It takes a while to get on the cams and up to speed. But then you have it in fourth gear and in Strada (street) drive mode, which is like having it in “Safe, Reliable, Transportation” mode. Click the knob around to Corsa, which means “Race Track,” and then suddenly it feels about twice as powerful, which it is. All 550 hp is available if you can remember to put it in the right gear and get the appropriate engine speed. It shifts at about 5,500 rpm, Columbo told me, sitting next to me on my drive.

Getting used to the pedals is another thing. They are really close together and it’s not until I take off my right shoe that I can actually operate the pedals with and dexterity.

“Jay did the same thing yesterday,” said Colombo. “Jay” being Jay Leno, of course. Not to name drop.

The gated shifter takes some getting used to as well. At first you’d assume that you could slot it into each gear without even looking, but the gate is wide and you don’t want to hit second when you’re aiming for fourth, so your brain has to memorize where each gear is so you can do the shifting without looking down. Same with the pedals.

After about 10 minutes it all starts to come together: the Drive Mode knob is in Corsa, where it should be all the time, the shifter is memorized, and the seating position has gone from a slouching Abe Lincoln posture to something a little more accommodating for a cockpit made for dashing, short, Italian F1 pilotes. (They can lower the seat for you and fix it to your lanky proportions, should you be more of a Dan Gurney frame than Andrea de Cesaris.)

Once you get all that and recognize where the full power is, you can pass anything. If a SpaceX Starship was going up Big Tujunga Canyon Road, you could pass it. Or at least give it a run for its money.

The sound of the monster V12 at full song is appealing but not overly brutale, not like a Cobra or one of those continuation Corvette Gran Sports that rattle yer brain stem.

After a few more miles, you’re downright comfortable with it and you stop apologizing for “not being smooth” and you can just enjoy the thing. With new power steering and electronic suspension, it handles the curves far better than the original Diablo. With your right shoe off and the left foot sort of perching sideways off the left edge of the clutch pedal, the whole act of driving gets into a flow that becomes just plain fun, in a classic Italian supercar kind of way.

It’s not anywhere near what you’d call tossable, but name me a V12-powered anything that’s tossable. I could see why they chose LA’s Big Tujunga Canyon Road for the drive instead of, say, Angeles Crest or Angeles Forest, because the curves up here are wider, the transitions from right to left far more gradual. They show off the car’s power more than its dexterity. Something smaller and lighter would do better over on ACH, something like a McLaren or a Ferrari. This re-engineered classic belongs somewhere it can open up and roar.

Want one? Like I said, they’re approximately $1.5 million, and you might have to wait a while. But the wait may be worth it. Like the company founder, who was first mesmerized by a red Diablo he saw in the pages of QuatroRoute when he was but a boy, it’s a shape that’s easy to fall for.