A RARE Lamborghini Diablo GTR that won the 2002 Sandown 500 and completed in the 2003 Bathurst 24 Hour is now on the market.
The six-litre V12-powered supercar was campaigned by Team Lamborghini Australia in the Nations Cup category in the early 2000s.
It is chassis 4 of 30 built in 2000 for the Lamborghini SuperTrophy series (it’s understood there were additional cars built), the GTR model replacing the SVR after the SVR had served for four years in the one-make series.
Team Lamborghini Australia had initially competed in the Nations Cup with an SVR in 2000 and 2001 before driver Paul Stokell stepped into the GTR for the 2002 season.
The car is currently up for auction via Lloyds Auctions and, given its racing history, it’s simply staggering that the auction house hasn’t either listed any of its specific Australian racing achievements in the car’s description – or engaged us to put it all together, because this is a very cool race car that achieved plenty!
But never fear, V8 Sleuth is here – well, V12 Sleuth perhaps that should be!
Stokell finished fourth in the 2002 Nations Cup using the car, scoring a round victory at Winton (including winning all three races). However parity disputes (a rev reduction and weight addition) with PROCAR Australia saw the team bench the GTR for the Queensland Raceway round mid-season.
The car won the ’02 Sandown 500 (not a round of the Nations Cup that year, instead a stand-alone race) in the hands of Stokell and co-driver Anthony Tratt – it was the second of two years where the Melbourne endurance race was contested by Nations Cup and GT-P cars from the PROCAR Championship Series.
See this video for highlights from the 2002 Sandown 500 win via TLA.
It’s understood the same GTR raced in the early rounds of the 2003 Nations Cup with AFL legend John ‘Sam’ Newman at the wheel before it reverted to Tratt’s hands from round three at Wakefield Park onwards.
Peter Hackett drove it on the Gold Coast in the final Nations Cup round that October and the car was then a last-minute entry to the ’03 Bathurst 24 Hour run in association with Mark Coffey Racing with Donut King backing and Stokell, Hackett, Luke Youlden and the late Allan Simonsen behind the wheel.
Hackett stayed behind the wheel for the final event of the category in 2004 at Mallala and he also raced it in the returning Australian GT Championship in the following years.
He won 10 of the 15 races held in the 2005 championship and collected another race win in 2006 at the Bathurst round of the AGT.
Photo: Lloyds Auctions 
Photo: Lloyds Auctions 
Photo: Lloyds Auctions 
Photo: Peter Hackett
The Mercedes-Benz chief driving instructor was reunited with the car this week at Lloyds Auctions in Sydney.
The highly experienced Hackett finished runner-up in the 2012 Bathurst 12 Hour in an Erebus Mercedes-Benz, just one of hundreds of cars photographed in our new 12 Hour ‘Bathurst: Going Global’ collector’s book celebrating the GT era of the race over the last 10 years.
There’s a photo of every car to start or attempt to qualify for the Bathurst 12 Hour from 2011 to 2020, plus race review chapters and full results from each year’s race.
It’s available to pre-order now here via the V8 Sleuth Online Bookshop and expected to arrive in August/September.
The auction for the Diablo GTR has nine days to go with the current bid, last time we checked, at $172,000.
A quick check online shows that the same car appeared for sale back in 2011 on carsales with an asking price of $1 million.
V8 Sleuth has setup a ‘PROCAR Australia Magic Memories’ Facebook Group page here to celebrate the 10 years of PROCAR in Australia covering 1994 to 2004.
