Watch and Listen to This Murcielago GT1 Assault a Racetrack

Lamborghini’s last V12 GT race car still sounds incredible.

The FIA GT1 World Championship lived an unfortunately short life. In the series’ only two years, however, an abundance of monstrous GT cars came into being. The GT1 cars, which are still faster than modern GT3 cars, included the Aston Martin Vantage V12; Matech Ford GTs; Chevy Corvette C6.Rs; Nissan GT-Rs, and this Lamborghini Murcielago R-SV. Reiter Engineering built this Murcielago R-SV, which still races at various events in Europe. This represents the last V12-powered Lambo GT race car and it makes phenomenal noises.

Curiously, Stephane Ratel owns and drives this car. If you’re unfamiliar with Ratel, he also owns and operates the Stephane Ratel Organization (SRO), naturally. SRO ran the entire FIA GT World Championship and now runs the Blancpain GT Series that has grown immensely in recent years. We love seeing him dust off this old race car, which he flogs around world-famous Spa Francorchamps in Belgium. Even the engine warm-up sounds incredible.

At speed or standing still, the Murcielago R-SV drips with wonderful absurdity. The aerodynamics remain functional, but they somehow add to the Lambo excess that comprises much of the company’s appeal. The 6.5-liter V12 screams, particularly down the long Kemmel Straight that comes after the Eau Rouge-Radillon corner complex. All of it sounds fantastic. Also, you can add “flame-throwing exhaust” to the attributes that make Lamborghini race cars so good.

Eventually, the high cost of the higher-performance GT1 cars proved prohibitive, so SRO replaced the GT1 class with GT3 cars in 2012. These cars occasionally pop up still for vintage events and someone has attempted to sell the Matech Ford GTs for some time to no avail.

This video includes a number of exterior shots (turn up the audio, it’s a 19Bozzy92 video!) as well as onboard footage. You might find it curious to note that even though this is a high-end luxury car, it still shifts its sequential gearbox by lever. No paddle-shifters here.