Everyone’s got a past, and Italian supercar maker Lamborghini is no different. The 80s were a weird time for the brand. Bankruptcy-led reorganization forced the exit of the founder, Ferruccio Lamborghini, out of the company, and in came French businessmen, the Mimran brothers.
They had a clear goal in mind: to revive the brand. And so, under Patrick Mimran's leadership, Lamborghini forayed away from four-wheeled supercars to two-wheeled motorcycles, even if it was for a split second in the company’s long, storied history.
The result was the Design 90, born as a result of a collaboration between Lamborghini and French motorcycle experts Boxer Bikes (now known as Boxer Design). Introduced in 1986, six prototype Design 90s came fitted with in-line four-cylinder Kawasaki engines.
Now, if this were the April 1st, I’d say “yeah, right” and go about my day. But I kid you not, this was real.
And when you look at old snapshots of the finished product, it does look quite phenomenal for its time. Boxer bikes were quite popular back then, and that’s exactly what you see here. In fact, almost nothing in this motorcycle is Lamborghini except the badge. The Design 90 was almost entirely designed and constructed by Boxer Design.
Powering the bike was a 1000cc inline-4 motor that produced around 130 horsepower. With a wet weight of about 400 lb (180 kg), it boasted a top speed of around 155 mph (250 km/h).
It featured lightweight wheels and a handcrafted alloy frame designed by Claude Fior with fiberglass bodywork. Everything from the sculpted fuel tank, braking with gold-colored disc calipers, suspension, exhaust, and electrical parts was carefully thought through to give the bike its unique silhouette. Speaking of which, all the vents you see in its bodywork were there for a reason: aerodynamics.
You’d think it would have been the eye candy everyone wanted back then. Well, at least that’s what Lambo and Boxer thought. Lamborghini even accepted around 50 orders for the bike at US$13,500 a piece.
To give you some context, it was more than twice the price of the liter-class sportbikes of the time. That kind of pricing led the project to be abandoned after only six Design 90 motorcycles rolled off the factory line. The bike was ultimately shelved, with the Mimran brothers soon selling the company to Chrysler in 1987.
Today, only five of these motorcycles remain. Imagine riding around town in one of these in 2026. People would think you’d have a time machine on your hands. But not too long ago, you wouldn’t need a time machine to get one of these.
A Design 90 model actually went under the hammer at an auction in 2018. It had only had a single owner, who'd ridden it for just about 2,800 miles (4,500 km). With an opening price of around $58,000 at the auction, the Design 90 was expected to go for as much as $124,000 in total.
But guess what. It went unsold. Apparently, bidding did not even come close to its reserve price. Zero takers. Let that sink in.
And so, it became a unique part of automotive history. A Lamborghini motorcycle with a Kawasaki engine ... that nobody wanted.
Source: H & H Classics
