URRACO P 250
Lamborghini had a relatively small basis with only two models, the Miura and the Espada, and they decided that they needed a lower priced volume car to urn some money. In 1969 Paolo Stanzani and his team started working on it. It had to be a mid-engined car, but with place for four people. The big V 12 was to expensive and to big, so they decided to develop a completely new engine: the L240, it was an all aluminium V8 with one camshaft per bank. The new engine was very light, only 170 Kg., and produced 89 Hp/Ltr., almost the same as the V12, so total power of the V8 was 220 Hp at 7500 Rpm. The engine was crosswise mounted in front of the rear-wheels and the transmission was placed to the left of it, this lay-out worked perfectly, and was very cost-effective. To get more room in the interior, McPherson legs were used all around, not the best solution for a sport scar but they saved a lot of room and were cheap. (Lamborghini bought them from Fiat, who used them in their 130). The design of the car was given to Bertone, they made two prototypes but they weren't good enough, so a third was made. This was the right design, the car was called: Urraco, which means: young bull, and the car was introduced on the 1970 Turin car show. There were a lot of orders for the car, but Lamborghini had a lot of problems, the financial position of the company was very weak, and the car had a lot of faults. It took them two years to sort out the car, and a lot of clients withdraw their orders. The first cars were produced in 1972, in this year only 35 cars were produced, and in 1973 only 285, not by far the numbers Lamborghini had planned. In 1973 the competition ( Ferrari) came with the 308 GT4 and sales dropped further, so they started working on a better car with more power: the P 300.

URRACO P 300
Because of the small production figures, the competition from Ferrari's 308 GT4, and the higher price they had to ask for the Urraco the car had to be better and faster. The engine was changed to 3 Ltr. and 2 camshafts per cylinder bank were mounted on it, with some other modifications the new L 300 engine produced 250 Hp at 7500 Rpm. The transmission, the body work and the road holding were improved and the new car was introduced in Turin 1974. But the problems got bigger, the sales in the U.S. were not good, due to emission regulations the P 250 delivered only 180 Hp, and there was no money to change the P 300's engine to U.S. specs and sales were not spectacularly. For the Italian market a few P 200 were produced with a smaller 2 Ltr. engine. Bob Wallace built a special Urraco : the Rally Urraco (not an official Lamborghini project), with this car he showed the owners that Lamborghini could built a race car, but... they were not interested in racing, the financial position of Lamborghini was very bad in 1975, Wallace and Stanzani left the firm, but... this was not the end.
LAMBORGHINI 8 CYLINDER CARS



....... Urraco P 250 -----------------------Urraco P 300
Production no. 520 ======================205
Production years '72-'76--------------------------- '75-'79 Driven wheels rear -----------------------------rear
Place engine mid ------------------------------mid
No. seats 2+2 =======================2+2
Engine type V8 2 OHC -----------------------V8 4 OHC
Engine size (cc) 2462 -----------------------------2996
Max. power (Hp/Rpm) 220 / 7500--------------------- 250 / 7500
Max. torque (Nm/Rpm) 225 / 5750 --------------------------264 / 5750