Eccentrica's Lamborghini Diablo Restomod Is Now Available As A Roadster, Still Firmly In The Uncanny Valley

The restomodders finally came for the Lamborghini Diablo a couple of years ago, when a company called Eccentrica announced plans to build 19 examples of a car it called the V12. The Eccentrica V12 promised carbon-fiber bodywork, a 550-horsepower V12 engine paired with a gated shifter, LED lighting, a modern interior, and a look that just felt a little off from every angle. Now, Eccentrica is back with the V12 Roadster, a roof-free version that's automatically better because roadsters are a type of convertible, and life is better with more convertibles.

The Eccentrica V12 Roadster will officially be revealed at the Quail on August 14, because where else would you show a car like this off other than Monterey Car Week? Diablos themselves are already expensive, and the work Eccentrica does on top of that only adds to the price. Like the original V12, the V12 Roadster's press release says nothing about cost, but there's no way removing the Roadster costs less than the coupe's reported $1.3 million price tag, which didn't include the cost of the donor car (probably another $400,000 or so).

Eccentrica says it developed "more than 3,500 bespoke components per vehicle" and rebuilds every donor car from the ground up. That includes the engine, a naturally aspirated 5.7-liter V12 that makes 550 hp at 7,000 rpm and 443 lb-ft of torque at 6,500 rpm. Even without the roof, the top speed is reportedly 208 mph, accelerating from 0 to 60 mph takes less than 3.8 seconds, and most importantly, it still has that gated six-speed manual. Handling should be better, too, thanks to modern suspension geometry and dampers, new brakes, and some carbon fiber upgrades to the structure itself. The body is also aero-optimized for a more pleasant open-top driving experience.

The carbon-fiber body panels generally do a nice job of staying faithful to the Diablo's original design, even with a slightly wider track and more modern proportions. Like the coupe, though, the wheels don't look quite right, but that would be an easy enough fix. With the pop-down headlights and the round LEDs on, the result is a front end that looks sleepy. The Eccentrica V12 is far from the only restomod let down by LED running lights, but if you're spending something like $2 million on a restomod Diablo, you'd hope they'd come up with a better solution.

Inside, you also get an odd mix of new and old. It looks like Eccentrica's added a few updates to the cabin, so it's not exactly the same interior you saw in the original V12 coupe, but it's still pretty much the same. Moving what appears to be the drive-mode selector to the center console only ups the uncanny valley factor. We weren't exactly big fans of the hardtop's cabin, and the changes for the Roadster haven't done much to change that opinion. But if the wealthy buyers who can afford to drop $2 million on cars like this like it, more power to them I guess. 

It's not like they're actually going to drive this thing anyway. Not with an airbag-free steering wheel threatening a painful death in the event of a crash. Which is a shame, because despite the weird cabin choices and LED DRLs, it's a pretty awesome looking restomod, and it probably makes for an incredible behind-the-wheel experience. Besides, you never know. Maybe a few owners will surprise us and actually put some real miles on their cars. Eccentrica's only building 19 examples, so a V12 Roadster will still be ultra-rare even with a few thousand miles on it. They can't all be terrified of their own mortality, right?