DIY Lamborghini

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

What do you do if you want your very own yellow Lamborghini Diablo VT Roadster, but you can’t afford it? No problem, said a man in China, I just build my own.

After a year of welding, painting and thoroughly riveting work, the car was done. It is powered by a Nissan V6 Twin Cam 32, the engine of the old Nissan Skyline.

A complete documentation of the build process can be found at Carnewschina.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • FJ60LandCruiser FJ60LandCruiser on Feb 20, 2012

    In America he would have been the head of a successful kit car body conversion company that advertises how you can turn your rusty Fox body mustang into an SCCA "winning" supercar through three line ads stuffed between male enhancement products and international mail order brides in the back of Car and Driver before his coke habit forced his shadetree company, run out of a warehouse in South Georgia, to go bankrupt and take with it 100 5000 dollar deposits from starry eyed clients straight to a mansion in Bermuda. ...but not before Car and Driver would have reviewed one of his better built examples as a peerless driving instrument and having more lateral g's (the true defining factor of ANY car or SUV) than any of the readily available and reliable cars on the market, ignoring the fact it routinely wouldn't start during the test and bits had a habit of falling off.

  • Icemilkcoffee Icemilkcoffee on Feb 20, 2012

    Wow- great to see some real DIY car enthusiasts coming out of China. I can't wait till this guy starts his own kit car company.

  • Kwik_Shift_Pro4X Where's the mpg?
  • Grg These days, it is not only EVs that could be more affordable. All cars are becoming less affordable.When you look at the complexity of ICE cars vs EVs, you cannot help. but wonder if affordability will flip to EVs?
  • Varezhka Maybe the volume was not big enough to really matter anyways, but losing a “passenger car” for a mostly “light truck” line-up should help Subaru with their CAFE numbers too.
  • Varezhka For this category my car of choice would be the CX-50. But between the two cars listed I’d select the RAV4 over CR-V. I’ve always preferred NA over small turbos and for hybrids THS’ longer history shows in its refinement.
  • AZFelix I would suggest a variation on the 'fcuk, marry, kill' game using 'track, buy, lease' with three similar automotive selections.
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