L.J.K. Setright was informed, opinionated and unafraid of controversy. Tall, bearded and usually seen with a wide brimmed hat on his head, a Black Russian cigarette between his lips and a Savile Row suit on his wiry frame, Leonard John Kensell simply stood out.

Setright made his name as a journalist with CAR magazine, to which he contributed to for more than 35 years. Lover of art, music, literature, history, engineering and Honda Preludes, Setright’s writing was as confident, idiosyncratic and sophisticated as he was, peppering articles with obscure cultural references and random latin. Reading a Setright book can be equal parts joy and frustration, but challenge brings reward, and few other automotive writers have matched his humor, insight or authoritative knowledge.

In 1986, in between describing 911s as “dreadfully wrong” and feet as “bicrural extremities”, Setright found time to share a secret purportedly revealed to him by a Lamborghini insider.

From an issue of the defunct UK magazine Supercar Classics, he declared “The accepted legend is that the original engine was designed for Lamborghini by Bizzarrini, based on a design study of his for a 1.5 litre Grand Prix engine which (properly, from what I remember of it) came to nothing, and that this was subsequently modified or mollified by Dallara. Now I will admit to a good deal of respect for the work of young Dallara, but honestly I cannot see anything in the work of either of these engineers, either before or since, of comparable quality. I am therefore all the more inclined to believe what I was privately told quite authoritatively in 1975 that the design was secretly commissioned by Lamborghini from Honda.”

Setright never named his source, but added that Honda “executed the commission very swiftly, as it was especially capable of doing; it met Lamborghini’s original specifications perfectly, getting the design right the first time without need for prolonged development, which again is consistent with its unparalleled competence; and Honda’s corporate and individual sense of honor would prevent it from admitting it, since the normal cloak of commercial anonymity would have been cast over the transaction. Nevertheless, there was no other engine, and especially no other V12, of equal merit created in the decade before the debut of the first Lamborghini, nor any superior in the years immediately following other than by Honda. What more appropriate than that one of the world’s best engines should be designed by the world’s best engine maker?”

Author Pete Lyons further analyzed these purported Japanese-Italian ties in his excellent “The Complete Book of Lamborghini”, noting that “…Ferruccio Lamborghini had established friendly contacts with fellow industrialists of Soichiro Honda’s caliber, and unashamedly ‘borrowed’ their latest manufacturing techniques. We know, too, that by 1963, Honda’s engineering expertise had laid waste to Europe’s motorcycle racing establishment, a forecast of things to come in the street-bike arena.”

Lyons goes on to note that while Honda’s own V12–a 1.5-liter seen in their 1964 debut F1 racer the RA271–may have shared certain design similarities with Lamborghini’s unit, it was not a success, scoring only one victory before the end of the 1500cc formula in 1965. He further speculates that Lamborghini would have had little need to seek assistance “from a very foreign company with no background whatsoever in high performance cars”, pointing out that the proud Italian industrialist’s own staff was already overflowing with imagination and talent.

Bizzarrini himself has claimed public ownership of the design more than once, including in this excerpt from a 1986 Automobile Quarterly marque history: “I presented to Lamborghini the drawing of a 1.5-liter motor with 12 cylinders I had designed for Formula 1, but he gave me the assignment to design a 3.5-liter motor.” He added that early dyno tests produced 358 hp at 9800 rpm, and calculated that more than 400 at 11,000 could be achieved with bigger carbs before again being reminded that the engine was for a GT and not a racer.

Until proven wrong we’ll continue believing the original quad-cam Lambo V12–in continual production for nearly 50 years, in one form or another–was purely the work of Giotto Bizzarrini’s genius. Still, stranger things have happened, and it’s worth remembering what else Soichiro’s firm was up to around the time, including a twin-cam pickup truck that revved to 9000 rpm, and a championship winning 250cc 24V straight-six that span twice as fast yet–if anyone in Japan could have done it, it would have been Honda.

Images: CAR, Honda, Lamborghini