Not all images were able to load for printing. Please close the print window and try again. The Cavën Hommage 26 is an Unexpected Restomod… Gallardo?!
As the car that saved the brand, Lamborghini's hugely succesfull Gallardo now gets the nip-and-tuck treatment from its original designer.
Nope, your eyes are not deceiving you. Although it’s not called the Lamborghini Gallardo anymore, this is very much based on the car that saved the fabled Italian carmaker from extinction. Sounds a bit dramatic, but following a number of rather troublesome years through the 1990s and Audi’s buyout in 1998, the Gallardo needed to be a success for the brand to survive, since the company couldn’t run on the Murciélago alone. And a success it was, as Lamborghini ended up producing well over 14,000 of them between 2003 and 2013. Now, a little over two decades later, the Gallardo returns as the Cavën Atelier Hommage 26. And fun fact: its redesign is done by the same man who drew the concept car that inspired the original Gallardo: Fabrizio Giugiaro!
Cavën Atelier
The name Cavën Atelier has likely not been on your radar before, as this is the company’s first full car project. Based in Marbella, Spain, Cavën is a multi-disciplinary creative engineering studio working on automotive design, technological innovation and special manufacturing processes. The company creates complete cars, but also individual commissions, special components, objects and experiences. According to their own words, that is. Information about the company is a bit scarce outside of the Hommage 26, but we’ll take their word for it.
Involving Fabrizio Giugiaro’s GFG Style design firm (more on him in a bit), the Hommage 26 is the first Designer Series product by Cavën Atelier. The idea of the Designer Series is to collaborate with the original designers of relatively modern super- and hypercars to create highly limited, bespoke reimaginations of past creations. The company has stated that the second project will be revealed, at least by name, before the first Hommage 26 will be delivered to its new owner.
The master’s (re)touch
The name Giugiaro should ring very familiar to anyone with even an inkling of love for cars and car design. It’s forever tied to Italdesign, the studio founded by legendary automotive designer Giorgetto Giugiaro in 1968. Giorgetto Giugiaro and Italdesign have been responsible for a whole slew of exotic concept cars, such as the 18/3 Chiron, EB112, EB118 and EB218 that defined the new era of Bugatti hypercars. Other famous concepts are the BMW Nazca C2 and M12, Bizzarrini Manta and the Volkswagen W12. Yet Giugiaro and Italdesign had a huge influence on many production cars during his career. Some of his most famous work includes the Alfa Romeo Alfasud, the DeLorean DMC-12, the Lancia Delta, the Lotus Esprit, and the Maserati MC12. Oh, and let’s not forget a little hatchback called the Volkswagen Golf, perhaps his biggest accomplishment.
The story of the Gallardo, however, involves Giorgetto’s son, Fabrizio Giugiaro. He, too, has an impressive resume in automotive design and has been actively involved in Italdesign until the takeover by Audi, and beyond. Shortly after Audi bought Lamborghini (the Volkswagen-Audi Group went on a bit of a shopping spree in the 1990s), plans were drawn up to restructure Lamborghini and start working on the replacement for the then sole car in the portfolio, the ageing Diablo. Introduced in 2001, the Murciélago successfully continued the brand’s V12 supercar legacy, but there was room for more. The answer was the Gallardo, a sleek baby-Lambo with a rather potent Audi-developed V10 in the back.
The Gallardo was developed under the supervision of Lamborghini lead designer Luc Donckerwolke. It’s primarily based on the Lamborghini Calá, a concept revealed to the world in 1995 and penned by… Fabrizio Giugiaro! Spiritually, it was a successor to the Jalpa (built between 1981 and 1988), and it showed what a more compact sports/supercar could look like. It was a fully functional prototype, with a 4.0-litre V10 and a 6-speed manual in the back. The body was a compact, flowing, muscular mix of curves, intakes and vents. And even though the Gallardo is a much tighter, edgier car, the similarities are there, especially when you peel back the exterior. And considering Italdesign, and thus by extension Fabrizio Giugiaro, were very much involved in the Gallardo’s creation, Cavën comes full circle.
The concept of the Hommage 26 is essentially to create what the Gallardo would look, drive and feel like if it were built today. And by looks alone, I’d say they nailed it on the head. Sure, it might not have the mad bedroom-poster-car styling the Countach or the Diablo were famous for, but the Gallardo never had that either. It was clean, tight and built very well with a clear purpose in mind: to excite, yet at a less hardcore level than its bigger V12 brothers, without the famous scissor doors. And given the sales numbers, it worked brilliantly for Lamborghini!
The Hommage 26
The Hommage 26 might look like a subtly nipped-and-tucked Gallardo, but the work involved goes far beyond skin-deep. For starters, the body panels are now drawn up from carbon fibre instead of aluminium, increasing structural rigidity while shedding weight in the process. Going over the styling, the Gallardo DNA is obviously very much there, but the tweaks give it a more ‘now’ appearance, which was the whole intention of the project. The front looks sharper, with a redesigned set of air intakes and a front splitter. Another unique new feature is the headlights, which now feature a drop-down panel to cover the main lights, with daylight-running lights just below it.
Looking at the Hommage 26 straight from the side reveals little change to the profile of the Gallardo, yet there’s a new air vent behind the front wheel; it has lost its door handles, and the upper air intakes seem to cut into the roof section a bit more dramatically. Then there’s a new engine cover connecting the roof section with the completely redesigned rear section. New taillights with two-by-two vertical and horizontal lights, a newly styled vent across the entire width of the car below, new exhausts and a new diffuser. But the coolest element is the two active aero flaps integrated into the body over the rear lights. They sort of look like the ones on the Pagani Huayra, and give the Hommage 26 better aerodynamic performance without interrupting the clean exterior.
On the inside, the original layout has been maintained, yet it’s all given a refresh, including newly designed seats. As is common with such projects, there are tons of bespoke options to choose from, and I bet no two will ever be exactly the same. What I do like, though, is that Cavën hasn’t slathered it in digital screens and unnecessary features. By far the best feature is the new drop-down window behind the seats, letting every single note of that glorious V10 howl into the cabin. Must be quite the thrill when you hammer it to redline!
Speaking of which, the Hommage 26’s soundtrack should also be even more glorious than the Gallardo’s, thanks to a bit of fiddling with the 5.0-litre or 5.2-litre V10, depending on whether you bring in a pre- or post-facelift donor car. The redline is now up to 8,500rpm instead of 8,000 rpm, and it pumps out a bit more power as well. Where the Gallardo’s V10 produced 500 horsepower in base trim (with up to 570 horsepower in later or special editions), the Hommage 26 gets 540bhp in GT trim, or 560bhp in Performance trim. So it’s not a huge increase in power, with the focus being more on the experience side of things. All that power is sent to the rear wheels only, through a gated six-speed manual.
Now, if by now you’re thinking “I very much want one!”, Cavën will only build 25 of them, so that can be a bit of an issue. Another thing to consider is the price for the Hommage 26. The donor car comes from you, so that’s not included in the bill. And depending on how wild you go with the options list, the starting price of EUR 900,000 is very likely to surpass the one-million mark without too much effort. So yes, it’s a glorious rethink of what is one of Lamborghini’s most successful cars ever made, but one that’s out of reach for most of us.
For more information, please visit CavenAtelier.com.
Editorial Note: The information used and images portrayed are sourced from and used with permission from Cavën Atelier, unless stated otherwise.
