Back in 1998, the Lamborghini Diablo SV came with an MSRP of around US$ 230,000, which was already a lot of money, but things got considerably more intresting when none other than Victoria’s Secret decided to take a Diablo SV and invert the massive lettering on the side to say ‘VS’, short for Victoria’s Secret naturally, and feature the car in their 1998 Christmas dreams & fantasies catalog, now boasting chrome wheels, custom-made chrome VS lettering, finished in white over a Snowcorn interior with a matching, custom set of luggage, priced at a staggering $350,000, talk about upselling.
The intention was to sell a few units of this special Victoria’s Secret Diablo SV edition, but in the end, only one single car was ever sold, chassis ZA9DU12B4WLA12945, making this truly a one-of-a-kind car. Remember back in 1998, most of the Diablo SV models that arrived in the United States were the special Monterey edition, a strictly limited edition of just 20 units, all individually numbered, and featuring chromed Kinesis wheels instead of the standard OZ-wheels with the black center, but also with the Roadster derived side skirts with the vertical air intake dividers in front of the rear wheels, complete with a color coded rear wing.
What really made this 1998 Diablo Sport Veloce even more unique was the fact that it did get those Monterey Edition, chrome Kinesis wheels and the color-coded rear wing, but not the rocker panels, it came with the standard SV intakes in front of the rear wheels, unfortunately not much information was ever published about chassis WLA12945 after it was sold in 1998, but apparantly this unique Lamborghini was involved in a car crash in Colorado back in 2006, which resulted in a Salvage Title listing on CarFax.
Naturally, this piece of information triggered Ed Bolian, founder of VINwiki, so much that he started on a quest to find this rare automobile to add it to his collection, but that turned out to be more difficult than he envisaged as not a single piece of information or CarFax entry could be found since 2011, that’s 14 years ago at the time of writing, so Ed ended up buying another Diablo SV, this time from Japan, but that’s a different story, back to this 1998 Diablo SV, or Diablo VS as it is sometimes called … take a look at Ed’s video about his hunt for the Victoria’s Secret Lamborghini:
So has this elusive car been lost in a secret collection in the United States or overseas? No, actually it has been stored inside a warehouse, high on top of a lift, until Ed got a solid lead to it, we can all guess what happened next, Ed wanted it. But there was a small issue, the current owner, despite having the car sitting still for over 14 years as it moved just 2 miles since it was sold at a Mecum auction in 2011, knew what he had, and he asked for an astronomically high number, but knowing Ed, the latter made a rather low-ball offer on the car … after all is said and done, they ended up somewhere in the middle, and Ed Bollian ended up buying this one-off Diablo SV, let’s see how he tells the story in his latest video:
In the video above, Ed doesn’t mention how much he ended up paying for this unique 1998 Diablo SV, which was the first year the Diablo SV was available in the United States of America, although the Diablo SV was introduced at the 1995 Geneva Motor Show, this was a 1998 model, finished at the factory in April of that year. The car is now in Ed’s possession, and as it has been sitting for 14 years, it looks a bit yellow and is covered in a ton of dust, the car will need a complete detail, probably some upholstery work (the door cards seems scratched up, while the seats were both removed), and a complete overhaul of the engine, but I’m sure we’ll be seeing this car on the road soon.
