Lamborghini’s Polo Storico division is responsible for bringing old Raging Bulls back up to spec. That typically entails road-going supercars, but with this latest project, it’s ventured into the realm of vintage F1 cars, too.
What you’re looking at here is a 1992 Minardi M191B – one of the few F1 racers to have been powered by a Lamborghini engine. And its restoration now completed marks the first F1 car that the Polo Storico department has undertaken.
The experts at Polo Storico took seven months to bring the Minardi – a longtime fixture of the factory collection on display in the Lamborghini Museum – back to its original racing form. That included comprehensively restoring the twelve-cylinder engine, capable of producing nearly 700 horsepower. The tires, fuel tank, engine control unit, seat belts, and fire suppression system were all replaced under the watchful eye of Giancarlo Minardi – founder of the team now known as Scuderia Toro Rosso.
“Seeing the models of 25 or 30 years ago is still exciting,” said Minardi. “They are the last cars before the beginning of telemetry and automatic transmissions. Apart from the growling noise, which still today brings back those wonderful times, it was a very flexible engine with enormous power starting from the low rpms.”
Chassis #003 didn’t achieve any major victories to speak of. Its best result was an eleventh-place finish at the hands of Christian Fittipaldi at the 1992 Spanish Grand Prix, before it was replaced by the newer M192 (also powered by Lamborghini). But then few of the single-seaters ever powered by the Raging Bull marque ever finished in the points, Aguri Suzuki’s podium finish in his native Japan in 1990 behind the wheel of a Larrousse Lola standing as a notable exception. But they’re part of Lamborghini’s history just the same, especially considering that the Italian automaker only supplied its engines for a brief five seasons of Formula One racing.