My old Lambo photos from the 90s

It's funny seeing Goodwood before it went all prim and posh.

Glad I got to experience them. Still remember looking over Peter Saywell's SE30.

When was the last one? I was there but have no idea what year. Maybe 1998?

Hi Stevewak , it would be great to make contact with you too .
It would be good to share information .

cgt2 - Thank you for the encouragement, hugely appreciated.

And Ferruccio , thank you for all your help with the Diablo book , and thank you too for your offer of further help .

Stevewak … Thanks and will do .


Last September , after 8 years of trying , I finally managed to secure an interview with Snr Marcello Gandini .
It is difficult for a non-journalist to get time with important motoring personalities .
It had previously taken me years and years to get interviews with Tonino Lamborghini , Stanzani , Dallara , Marchesi , Pagani , Maurizio , etc ,etc .

But one advantage that I appeared to have as an outsider with no connections was that some of these people seemed happier to open up to a non- industry person . One person actually said that they didn’t see me as a threat - I still don’t know whether to take that as a compliment or not !

Anyway , my Co-author and I prepared throughly for our Gandini interview , knowing that the available time would be short and that language might be a problem .

I had also believed from reading previous reports that Snr Gandini might choose not to be effusive .

Anne and I couldn’t have been more pleasantly surprised .
Snr Gandini was a thorough delight and after we had been through all our written-down questions , all of which he answered at length , he gave us more time to delve further into the answers he had already provided us with .
His daughter translated brilliantly so language was not a problem .

Most importantly he wanted to stress a few important points about specific cars that he had designed , and about the principles that guide his approach to car design . Snr Gandini repeated these points to be sure that we fully understood what he was saying , and said that we too should emphasise these points in any books we wrote going into the future .

We had about an hour with Snr Gandini , and will always be grateful for this time with him and his daughter .
They were very generous .

We sat in the car park for about 2 hours and wrote up our notes .

And dovetailing what Stanzani had said to me a long , long time ago with what Snr Gandini had just told me , resurrected a tiny spark that had been bothering me for a long time now - re how we look at ( and how magazines and books universally have reported on ) Lamborghini’s early offerings .

But the Murcie , Diablo and Countach books had already been published , and these books had not properly elaborated on this point , and neither had any of the other Lamborghini books on my bookshelf .
I so wished that I had met Snr Gandini before writing any of these books .

It is so difficult for a non-established , not-formally-trained , writer to get a book contract .
There were no book contracts on the horizon , and it was sad that I now didn’t have the space to elaborate on this ‘ spark’ that Snr Gandini had rekindled .
Over the next 4 weeks we revisited various Lamborghini related places in Italy and I bored Anne to tears at each of these places while I lamented the fact that I had no space ( ie a book contract ) in which to realign how we might choose to look at Early Lamborghinis .

And then I returned back home to find a definite contract for a book on the Countach , Diablo and Murcie , and another contract for a book on the Countach .

So I’ m both excited and very grateful for these two opportunities .

Pistonhead members have been very generous with their knowledge , and PH has a huge reach - I have had PH members from 5 continents helping out ( come on South American PH’ers , and you penguins )

Thanks for the interest in my post. In order to answer some of your questions I need to explain my time line with Lamborghini.
In October 1972 I was a 22 year old Cop in the City of London. On my beat I had the showrooms of Nicholas Van der Steen Ltd who were at Malvern House, Upper Thames Street, London EC4. A modern showroom and petrol station situated on the North side of Southwark Bridge.
Van der Steen had a BMW concession, with the Lamborghini business concentrated at 74, Alie Street, London E1. Nick Van der Steen ran the BMW concession and Roger Phillips looked after the Lamborghini side.
I called into the showroom for a tea and a chat whenever I was in the area. One day I saw A Honda motorcycle In the showroom, a CB750KO. Since the age of 16 I have been a keen motorcyclist (i still am), I discovered that the bike was owned by Roger Phillips and managed to blag a ride on it.
Roger invited me to the 1972 Earls Court motor show. Whilst there I was asked to drive a car from Earls Court to the showroom at Malvern House. The car turned out to be the just launched BMW 3.0 CSL in a beautiful gold colour. I very carefully drove the car across London and deposited it at the showroms.
After the show I called into Malvern House and Roger Phillips offered me a job as a driver. It turned out that the BMW drive had been my test!
I commenced work at Alie Street in November 1972 where I met Tom Gilban and Del Hopkins amongst others. There was another Bob working there so I was given the name 'Bob the Cop'.

This was the brochure produced for the 1972 Motor Show

The Countach would not be seen in the UK until the 1973 show.
I set about collecting customers cars for servicing, photo shoots with the press and delivering sold cars and collecting the part exchange, normally an Aston Martin, Ferrari etc. My first trip to the factory was late 1972 early 1973 to collect a Jarama, followed by several trips in 1973 as required.
In 1973 the Nick Van der Steen/ Roger Phillips partnership split and I stayed with Roger. Nick began importing the ISO Lele to make up for the loss of Lamborghini. Roger occupied new offices at 58, Southwark Bridge Road, London SE1. Later in the year we moved to 5-6 Yarmouth Place, Brick Street, London, W1.


This is the letter from JCL Marine where I took the gold Urraco for the Martini ad. I wonder who has John Newman's Espada now?
By this time I was driving, dealing with warranty issues and arranging servicing amongst other things. It was also the start of the Arab/ Israeli war that brought about problems with obtaining fuel. A Lamborghini at 10 to 15 miles per gallon did not go far on the 2 gallons ration. My work became more office based and it was with a heavy heart that I left Lamborghini in February 1974 to return to the Police. I did however remain a friend of Roger and was able to assist him on my leave days and shared a house with him in 1979/1981.
I will leave this post for now before it gets too long. I will answer the 'how many Urraco' question and let you know of an interesting car that almost was.