The last Murcielago

A Swiss millionaire has bought the last Murcielago to run down Lamborghini's Sant'Agata production lines.

Built back in May, the bright orange Murcielago LP670-4 SV was the 4099th version of the V12 supercar, making it Lamborghini’s most successful V12 in history.

"For almost a decade, the Murcielago was the icon of the Lamborghini brand and it was enormously successful in the process," Lamborghini President, Stephan Winkelmann said.

'It embodies the pure, unadulterated values of our brand. It is truly extreme, uncompromising and unmistakably Italian. The Murcielago is a super sports car of menacing character and brutal power."

After starting production in 2001 with 580 horsepower and 6.2 litres of capacity, Lamborghini moved it to 6.5 litres and 640 horsepower in its second generation and even stretched it to 670 horsepower with the SuperVeloce in its most-brutal iteration.

This car, the last ever built, is 100kg lighter than the LP640 and smacks 100km/h in 3.2 seconds and reaches 342km/h.

Yet for all its brutality, the Murcielago was a hand-built anomaly, with a low-tech feature for every high-tech one. Its body panels (with the exception of the doors and the roof) were carbon fibre, yet the chassis was a relatively agricultural tube frame device with torsional stiffness levels far lower than the junior Gallardo.

It remained a consistent sales performer for Lamborghini, though, with Winkelmann admitting that it ticked along at roughly the same rate every year with little need for marketing impetus.

"People reach up for a Gallardo, but they don't even ask the price of a Murcielago," he once said.

Read the latest Carsales Network news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at the carsales mobile site