A curiously specified Lamborghini Veneno Roadster has supposedly become the most expensive Lamborghini ever sold at auction after an anonymous buyer paid £6,768,709 (more than P431.5 million) for it at a Bonhams auction in Switzerland. Not bad, given it was estimated to sell for ‘just’ £4.5 million (around P287 million).
The Veneno was one of 25 cars seized by Swiss authorities back in 2016 as part of an investigation into Teodoro Nguema Obiang (look closely and you’ll see his initials inscribed on the Lambo’s doors and hood)—vice president of the impoverished but oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, and son of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
All 25 cars, including a Koenigsegg One:1 that sold for £3,760,394 (about P240 million), a LaFerrari that sold for £1,786,187 (above P113 million), and an Aston Martin One-77 that went for £1,269,133 (around P81 million), were sold at last weekend’s auction. In all they earned a grand total of £21.9 million (around P1.39 billion), a significant portion of which will be used to fund social projects in Equatorial Guinea.
Lamborghini built just nine Veneno Roadsters (as opposed to three coupes), based on the Aventador platform and using a tuned version of its 6.5-liter V12 giving 740hp. It can do 0-100kph in less than three seconds and has a top speed of 354kph. New they cost €3.3million (about P186.5 million) before tax. This one, number seven, has around 322 kilometers on the clock.
NOTE: This article first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
