A LAMBORGHINI Diablo GTR that won the 2002 Sandown 500 and competed in the Bathurst 24 Hour has sold at auction for $700,000.
Auctioned by Shannons, the car was the fourth of a batch of 30 Diablo GTRs built in 2000 for the one-make Super Trophy Series.
The 6-litre V12-powered supercar was dispatched Down Under to be run by Team Lamborghini Australia in 2002, replacing the team’s outdated SVR model Diablo.
TLA spearhead Paul Stokell raced the car in the 2002 Nations Cup and in September’s Sandown 500, where he teamed with V8 Supercar driver Anthony Tratt to claim victory.
That was the second and final year the legendary Melbourne event was run for Nations Cup and GT-P machinery before the V8s returned in 2003.
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AFL legend Sam Newman, Tratt and Peter Hackett are all understood to have raced this car with TLA in the 2003 Nations Cup season.
The car was then a late entry into November’s Bathurst 24 Hour, where Stokell, Hackett, Luke Youlden and Allan Simonsen shared driving duties.
It surprised many by lasting the full 24 hours but finished down in eighth place – 40 laps behind the winning Holden Monaro – after a litany of problems, including seven tyre failures.
Hackett later raced the car in the 2004 Nations Cup finale and narrowly missed taking out the following year’s Australian GT Championship, in which he won 10 of the 15 races.
The Diablo returned for a final blast at the Bathurst round of the 2006 Australian GT season, where it was again victorious with Hackett at the wheel.
It was offered for sale in a plain yellow colour, giving few clues to its history as a Sandown 500 winner and Bathurst racer.