New car news

17 December 2008 - 11:00

Legal battle

We’re not quite sure if this is art imitating reality, reality imitating art or something else completely. Lunacy, perhaps. Whichever way, we’re a bit confused.

This is the Reiter Murcielago R-GT, the road-legal version of Reiter’s GT racer. Which means it’s a road car that’s been turned into a race car… and then back again.

See, Reiter – the factory-backed race team that runs Lambos in GT1 and GT3 – takes stock Murcielagos and readies them for racing by turning them from four-wheel to rear-wheel drive, adding a load of aero aids, uprated brakes and suspension, and a revised exhaust system.

And now the team has shown off a road-legal version, which keeps the rear-wheel drive, huge rear wing and carbon fibre bits, but adds all those little bits and pieces necessary to keep Her Majesty’s at bay. A licence plate, mainly.

So you’re looking at a ultra-lightweight, even more powerful Murcielago that you’re actually allowed to commute to work in. Not on a winter’s day, though, unless you have a pathological hatred of your own legs.

Cost? Blank cheque territory, we fear – Reiter simply says that it’ll make you a road legal Murcielago R-GT ‘for the right amount of money’. Which means ‘lots’, we think.

Completely pointless? Brilliantly hardcore. We don’t know. We’re all confused. We do want one, though.