It was in Morrisons, in the toy section.
Well, it’s close enough. We blogged a while ago about trying to find Hunter S Thompson’s Lamborghini LM002, and nothing came up. Did he even own it? Possibly not.
Anyway, we found this one, in miniature.
This 1:64 scale Matchbox Lamborghini LM002 is a great little representation of the famous V12 engined 4×4.
Tired of moving a couple of meters every few minutes? Annoyed that you’re going to be late for your friend’s birthday party or worried that your boss is going to fire you for being late again? Don’t worry, we’ve all been in those situations before. As drivers, we’re at mercy to two things: traffic and weather. It’s not our fault that everyone decided to get on the road at the same time as us. Sure, maybe you predicted there would be heavy traffic due to a holiday such as Christmas so you decided to get on the road a little earlier—too bad everyone else thought the same as you!
Sadly, the only thing we can do to alleviate these frustrations is to occupy ourselves. As long as you keep road safety in mind, here are some fun ways to keep yourself entertained during these horrible traffic jams.
Mobile Phone Games
Video games don’t have to be high-action. They can be simple as well and require thinking as opposed to reaction speed. Some examples include puzzle games like Sudoku, board games like Chess or even a role-playing game. They’re simple to learn, easy to play and you can stop them at any time to continue driving. If you’re interested in something more grown-up, you could play card games such as Poker, or even participate in competitions like this Discomfort Zone campaign as long as you have internet access and an account on the website.
Listen to Music
Music can be soothing, uplifting or even empowering. Listening to some relaxing music can relieve the stress of a busy and slow traffic jam, and listening to something upbeat and fast can get you grooving to hide the boredom. Grab yourself a portable battery bank or an in-car charger to fill your device with juice as you play music. Buy an audio cable to connect it to your car’s built-in speakers for better sound quality—never use headphones as it could distract you and you won’t hear the cars or people around you.
Read Something
As long as you don’t get too engrossed in a good book and forget to drive, reading can be a relaxing way to pass the time while you’re in a busy traffic jam. Bring your favourite book into the car with you and keep it stored in the glove compartment for boring traffic situations. It doesn’t have to be a fictional book either, it could be a magazine, today’s newspaper or a factual book or biography that you can read for inspiration and enlightenment.
Explore Your Mind
Have you ever taken a shower or gone to the toilet and had an epiphany or moment of clarity? When we’re in lonely situations, we often contemplate our lives and think about anything and everything. Traffic jams are good times to relax and think about things in our life. Stop thinking about how angry your boss is going to be when you arrive at work late or how disappointed your friend might be if you’re late to the party. Instead, reflect back on your life, think about problems that you’re having and explore your mind.
The Facts:
In 2009, Pistonheads wrote:
“Less than half a dozen LM002s are thought to be left in the UK. Chassis number 300 came up for sale in April this year: with 27,000 miles on the clock it was a fiver under £50k. If you find one for sale, check the roof.
If it’s got an opening flap over the back seats it might be one of the 100 LM002s President Gaddafi ordered for the Libyan army, complete with machine-gun mounting points. And if you buy any LM002, don’t expect to get much joy out of Kwik-Fit when you need a new tyre.”
And we’d be willing to be that in 2016 that same vehicle would reach £100,000 at auction. Hey ho.
The LM002 had various famous owners, including prolific writer Hunter S Thompson:
“It was a big bore Lamborghini hot rod, a monstrous thing that weighed 5000 pounds with bulletproof glass and twelve cylinders with a top speed of 125 miles per hour and a .50 caliber machine-gun mount behind the drivers seat… One night on the Big Sur Highway I beat a Porsche 928 from the Carmel Bridge to Nepenthe by nine minutes, mainly because I beat her like a cheap hound on the curves. It was a small woman driving the 928 and she went all to pieces when I passed her at 110 on the Bixby Creek Bridge and then squeezed her into the sand dunes…”
Hunter S Thompson was a prolific writer, who’s writing changed the face of journalism and has a huge following around the world. As well as being a writer, Hunter was a ‘car guy’. Much of his work hints at his adventures (or misadventures) with two and four wheels, using vehicles of all shapes and sizes.
In the book Songs of the Doomed Hunter describes his experiences with the mighty Lamborghini LM002 4×4 supercar engined jeep. Our question is…
According to those that knew him, he was never flush with cash. Although he’d made money early in his writing career, by the late 1970s he was fading out of focus. The ‘Rumble in the Jungle Incident’ (being drunk in the hotel pool instead of actually reporting on the most significant boxing match of all time) of 1974 was the beginning of a strange and gradual decline…. So did he have the money to invest in a six-figure rare and exotic car?
Where is Hunter S Thompson’s Lamborghini LM002 now?
Although much of his work has become widely read after his death, based on the blurred line between fact and fiction in much of Hunter S Thompson’s writing; it could be said that HST never owned an LM002. Despite being a well paid journalist and respected freelance writer, HST wasn’t the kind of person to have $100,000 at his disposal to lavish on outrageous purchases (If anyone can clarify or correct us on this point we’d love to hear from you).
Would he have spent it all on Heineken and ammunition before getting the chance to park an LM002 outside Owl Farm?
Cars like the Lamborghini LM002 don’t disappear, and they’re not cheap in 2014 (when this blog was first written). A recent auction of an LM002 is expected to make around $250,000, and the vehicles will only be appreciating. Edit.. It’s now 2020 and this blog is 6 years old, this one did $467,000 in 2017, this one did £157,000 in July 2020 and this one is currently for sale.
Being a rare vehicle, the chances are that someone knows what happened to Hunter’s Lamborghini, and knowing that the great HST himself had been listed on the vehicle registration document would be sure to cause a stir if the car turned up at auction. Perhaps Johnny Depp, or John Cusack, or Bill Murray have it squirrelled away in a lock up in California…?
We would love to think that Hunter S Thompson’s Lamborghini will turn up one day, a car will head to auction with Raul Duke listed as a previous owner… but until then, we can only wonder.
If you can share any knowledge on the whereabouts of Hunter’s Lamborghini, or whether he even owned the vehicle, then do get in touch – we’d love to find out more.
Here’s what Hunter S Thompson had to say about the Lamborghini LM002:
The big weird jeep was still there, lurking peacefully under the trees and almost invisible in the mist and the hanging Spanish moss… It was huge, but it had no colour. It came from the factory with no paint – only a dull stainless steel finish that soon faded to a filthy shade of yellow and millions of tiny reddish pits all over the hood and doors and even the Panzer-style undercarriage.
“Theses holes are not rust,” the pompous little factory rep assured me. “What you see here is priceless chemical development that was applied to the vehicle after fifty-five years of careful research at our secret Colour Lab in the Milanese Alps.. So you must be patient” he warned. “This process takes time. It involves the slow liberation of the Astro-Bacteria, which is frequently lethal to laymen. And which did, in fact, end the life of the tragic genius who first invented it, a man named Squane from Austria”.
Well, maybe so, I figured. It was ugly and pitted all over with millions of festering poison pits, which boiled and bubbled constantly and infected all who touched it…But it was a full-bore Lamborghini hot rod, a monstrous thing that weighed 5000 pounds with bulletproof glass and twelve cylinders with a top speed of 125 miles per hour and a .50 caliber machine-gun mount behind the drivers seat… One night on the Big Sur Highway I beat a Porsche 928 from the Carmel Bridge to Nepenthe by nine minutes, mainly because I beat her like a cheap hound on the curves. It was a small woman driving the 928 and she went all to pieces when I passed her at 110 on the Bixby Creek Bridge and then squeezed her into the sand dunes…
Why not? It happened to me once – in Sacramento, when some Japs in a brute Lamborghini ran me down The Parkway like I was standing still, then bashed me repeatedly at top speed until I finally lost control… It was one of the ugliest moments of my life and I’ll never forget it. Those tattooed swine! I should have had them locked up, but I was helpless. After that, I got one of my own, for $150,000
It was still early and we still had an hour to kill, so I drove around for a while and listened to Bob Dylan songs while I took the big Lambo through Cherokee Park at speeds that caused Andrew to lose his grip again. He wept and jabbered and cursed me as I aimed the huge tank of a jeep down narrow roads full of S-curves at a hundred miles an hour without even touching the brakes…
– Hunter S Thompson, Songs of the Doomed
Do you know any more about Hunter S Thompson’s alleged ownership of an LM002? Contact u.
