Lamborghinis are the ideal flashy machines for the rich and famous. Their cars hold the rockstar image in the automobile industry, and they sit as one of the topmost desirable items in every man’s wishlist. Its hard to believe that the company started from manufacturing farming tractors to making one of the most powerful, expensive and gorgeous cars. But down the line, somewhere, Lamborghini did something they will not be very proud of when they look back into time. A Lamborghini motorcycle was in pipeline, actually, two different models, both of which were not too much of a joy to look at.

During the 70’s, Lamborghini was going through hard times during the 1973 worldwide downturn and oil crisis. During this time, the company changed many hands, being sold by owner Furruccio Lamborghini to Georges-Henri Rossetti and René Leimer. The company soon went bankrupt and went under the receivership of brothers Jean-Claude and Patrick Mimran in 1980 before being sold again to Chrysler Corporation, who subsequently sold the Italian supercar maker to Mycom Setdco (Malaysian Investment Group), who eventually sold the company one final time to Volkswagen Group (where it currently resides) in 1998. But lets go back to the 1980s.

When the company was under the ownership of Jean-Claude and Patrick Mimran, the owners tried their very best to make ends meet. They decided to start selling Lamborghini engines to powerboat makers… and to take things to the next level, decided to start producing motorcycles.

The Lamborghini motorcycle was designed by French racebike specialists Boxer Design and a frame created by Claude Fior. For the engine (obviously couldn’t use any of lambo’s existing engines), Patrick Mimran went to Kawasaki who sold them two engines – a 900cc from the ZX series and a 1000cc from the RX series (GPZ1000RX).

And if there is any time when a car maker hasn’t understood motorcycle design, this is it. The Lamborghini design motorcycles weren’t exactly pretty, they had custom motorcycle parts as well. The body was completely made out of fibreglass, and to top off the wrongs, it was outrageously priced (of course, because Lamborghini). No matter though, the Lamborghini superbike was highly sought of and soon became a dream for millions of motorcycle enthusiasts across the world.

It is estimated that the 1000cc motorcycle produced close to 130bhp of power and had a weight of approximately 170kg. Some of these motorcycles exist event today. The asking price for one is anywhere between $50,000 (£32,000) and $70,000 (£40,000).