Worth it in the end
pristine Lamborghini Espada parked up at the London Concours in the late evening sunshine, you’d never guess what a mad rush it had been to get in finished in time. It wasn’t the engine rebuild that had caused the late nights: no, it was that ‘glass’ roof, which isn’t actually glass but high-grade Perspex. There is currently a huge shortage of Perspex, as every retailer and service centre in the world rushes to erect the screening required by today’s Coronavirus regulations.
Even though we’d ordered the custom-tinted Perspex panel several months in advance, it hadn’t arrived as the London Concours drew near. Daily phone calls and emails didn’t bring any response from the supplier, so at the last minute we decided to fit the dummy clear Perspex panel we had used for initial sizing way back in January.
Thanks to the law of sod, the tinted panel arrived by courier, unannounced, just as the glue on the clear panel was setting. But I wasn’t too distraught, as the clear panel seemed somehow to add to the craziness of having this huge window cut into the Espada’s roof, enhancing the view of the interior and making the car stand out even more in its little gaggle of Lamborghini concours entrants.
The 75-mile drive down into central London from my house had been pretty eventful, too, as it was unseasonably warm that afternoon and, while the water temperature kept steady at the higher end of normal, the oil temperature got a bit hotter than I’d like. I was using a special running-in oil and I’ve no idea if this was causing the issue, or whether it was a faulty gauge, but I was very glad to arrive at the showground after about an hour of horrid stop-start rush-hour traffic on the final stretch.
The next day turned out to be a washout, with continuous heavy rain from about 10am, making the judging process tough to say the least. I didn’t have high hopes for my Espada picking up a rosette, anyway, as there are a few chips on the bodywork, while the interior was also retrimmed back in the ’80s in high-grade Connolly leather, which is way nicer than how it left the factory but obviously no longer ‘correct’.
Yet the judges seemed to relish the car’s history, its uniqueness and particularly the way the rebuilt engine instantly sparked into life from cold and settled into a perfect 1000rpm tick-over for the next several minutes. I was gobsmacked when it was announced the Espada had won its class, and then completely knocked out when, at the end of the following day, I discovered that visitors to the show had voted the Espada winner of the People’s Choice award by quite a margin.
The last-minute rush suddenly seemed worth the effort. Now all I want to do is drive the Espada on a proper long trip, which is what I hope to be reporting on next.