The Lamborghini Sedan Before Lamborghini Built SUVs
The Lamborghini Faena is one of those cars that sounds fake until you see it: a four-door Lamborghini sedan built in the 1970s, long before the Urus, long before the Estoque concept, and long before anyone expected Lamborghini to make anything resembling a family car. It was not a factory production model, but it was not a backyard custom either. The Faena was a serious coachbuilt one-off by Pietro Frua, one of Italy’s respected postwar designers and body builders.
Its foundation was the Lamborghini Espada, which already stretched the brand’s identity. Introduced in 1968, the Espada was Lamborghini’s first true four-seat grand tourer, with a front-mounted V12, dramatic Bertone styling, and enough room to carry actual passengers. Lamborghini’s own history describes the Espada as a four-seat GT inspired by the Marzal concept and designed by the Stanzani-Bertone team.
By the late 1970s, the Espada was near the end of its run, and Frua saw a chance to push the idea further. If Lamborghini could build a four-seat GT, why not a four-door Lamborghini? The result was the Faena, a car that looked like an alternate timeline where Lamborghini tried to compete with the Maserati Quattroporte, Aston Martin Lagonda, or other exotic luxury sedans instead of staying almost entirely in the supercar world.
Frua Turned an Espada Into Something Stranger
The Faena was built on a reinforced Espada Series II chassis, commonly identified as chassis number 8224. Several sources note that the donor car had originally been delivered to Venezuela before being transformed by Frua in Turin. The conversion reportedly took about eight months, and the car was shown at the 1978 Turin Motor Show.
The changes were dramatic but strangely logical. Frua stretched the Espada’s wheelbase by about 18 centimeters, added rear doors, and reshaped the roofline into a long, low fastback sedan. The car still carried Lamborghini’s front-mounted V12 layout, but the proportions became more formal and more unusual. It was not as graceful as the original Espada, but that may be why it is so memorable. It looks like a Lamborghini trying to behave, and failing in the most interesting way.
The name Faena fit the brand’s bullfighting theme. In Spanish bullfighting, a faena refers to the final series of passes performed by the matador before the kill. That made it an appropriately theatrical name for a car that appeared near the end of the Espada’s life and near the end of Lamborghini’s wild first chapter. By 1978, Lamborghini was under financial pressure, and the idea of producing a niche four-door V12 sedan was never realistic.
What Happened to the Lamborghini Faena?
The Lamborghini Faena remained a one-off. It appeared again at the 1980 Geneva Motor Show, but no production version followed. Bertone had reportedly explored its own four-door Espada idea, but that stayed on paper, making Frua’s Faena the one real four-door Lamborghini sedan of its era.
Unlike many strange prototypes, the Faena did not disappear forever. It passed through private hands and has been seen publicly over the years, including a reported appearance at Pullicino Classics in London in 1996. Today, it is generally understood to survive as a privately owned collector car, though it is not a regular public-show fixture. That semi-private status adds to the appeal. There is only one, and it represents a path Lamborghini almost never took.
The Faena’s real importance is not that it predicted a production Lamborghini sedan, because that still has not truly happened. Instead, it proved that the idea was always lurking in the background. Decades later, Lamborghini would explore four-door performance luxury again with the Estoque concept, then reach family-car buyers through the Urus SUV. But the Faena came first: a V12, four-door, Espada-based oddity that asked whether a Lamborghini could have room for the whole family and still feel wonderfully unreasonable. Of course, the four-door Porsche 911 was a whole ‘nother attempt to build a four door performance luxury sedan.
