There are some cars that are so special that they don’t even have to be driven to become icons. The Lamborghini Diablo is one of them.
Children of the 1980s are lucky enough to have been born during a time when the Lamborghini Countach was still in production. However, if you happen to have come into this world in the middle to latter parts of the decade, your earliest memory of an exotic car might be a glimpse of the Countach’s successor, the Diablo, reviewed in the MotorWeek video below.
Perhaps you saw the dramatic lines and alien angles of one in a commercial. Maybe your parents took you with them to an auto show back in the day and you sat in one of the horizontally ribbed check-shaped seats and in the back of your head realized that it was odd that the door was straight up in the air and not next to you when you got in. The impossibly low nose, the wide metal hips, the upward slash of a beltline – those all stuck with you. You immediately knew when you saw the Diablo that it was an uncommon machine.
I was lucky enough to first see a Diablo in the metal first. Technically. I was a kid and accompanied my father to a yard sale one summer. A chunk of red caught my eye. Finding a price of $1 to be a bargain and an invaluable investment in his son’s growing love of automobiles, my dad bought me a 1:18-scale model of a red 1990 Lamborghini Diablo with tan seats. I’ll never forget that moment, that model, or that car. I’ve never driven a Diablo, but it’s still a legend to me.
It turns out, according to MotorWeek, the Diablo had more going for it than just its looks and 485-horsepower, 5.7-liter V12. The publication found the wicked wedge offered plenty of grip and feedback when hustled around the Pocono Raceway. Despite the Diablo’s hard seats, absence of power steering and ABS, and high price, MotorWeek enjoyed its time in the Italian terror. The program didn’t need to drive the Diablo to be impressed by it, but it did, anyway. It’s impossible to blame them. Just look at it.
Derek Shiekhi's father raised him on cars. As a boy, Derek accompanied his dad as he bought classics such as post-WWII GM trucks and early Ford Mustang convertibles.
After loving cars for years and getting a bachelor's degree in Business Management, Derek decided to get an associate degree in journalism. His networking put him in contact with the editor of the Austin-American Statesman newspaper, who hired him to write freelance about automotive culture and events in Austin, Texas in 2013. One particular story led to him getting a certificate for learning the foundations of road racing.
While watching TV with his parents one fateful evening, he saw a commercial that changed his life. In it, Jeep touted the Wrangler as the Texas Auto Writers Association's "SUV of Texas." Derek knew he had to join the organization if he was going to advance as an automotive writer. He joined the Texas Auto Writers Association (TAWA) in 2014 and was fortunate to meet several nice people who connected him to the representatives of several automakers and the people who could give him access to press vehicles (the first one he ever got the keys to was a Lexus LX 570). He's now a regular at TAWA's two main events: the Texas Auto Roundup in the spring and the Texas Truck Rodeo in the fall.
Over the past several years, Derek has learned how to drive off-road in various four-wheel-drive SUVs (he even camped out for two nights in a Land Rover), and driven around various tracks in hot hatches, muscle cars, and exotics. Several of his pieces, including his article about the 2015 Ford F-150 being crowned TAWA's 2014 "Truck of Texas" and his review of the Alfa Romeo 4C Spider, have won awards in TAWA's annual Excellence in Craft Competition. Last year, his JK Forum profile of Wagonmaster, a business that restores Jeep Wagoneers, won prizes in TAWA’s signature writing contest and its pickup- and SUV-focused Texas Truck Invitational.
