Fabrizio Giugiaro has gone back to one of his own designs, and CAVËN Atelier will build it 25 times. The car is called Hommage 26. According to the atelier’s own page, it “is planned as a strictly limited series of 25 automobiles”, developed “in collaboration with Fabrizio Giugiaro and GFG Style”, the design studio he co-founded in Moncalieri, on the edge of Turin. CAVËN sums up the idea in one line: “Fabrizio Giugiaro returns to one of his own designs, three decades later”. Reports in Italian, German and English identify that design as the one Giugiaro drew at Italdesign in 1998, the project that later became the Lamborghini Gallardo, and say that each car is built on a first-generation Gallardo. Hommage 26 was shown at the Concours at Wynn Las Vegas on 31 October, according to Supercars.net.
A drawing from 1998, revisited 28 years later
The starting point is old. Affaritaliani describes Hommage 26 as “una vettura nata da un suo disegno del 1998”, a car born from a drawing of his from 1998, and Carrozzieri Italiani gives the Italdesign project code, L140. CAVËN’s page says the original idea is “revisited with the benefit of hindsight, contemporary engineering, new materials and manufacturing possibilities”. The project was not meant as “un semplice restyling o un’operazione nostalgia”, a mere restyling or an exercise in nostalgia, according to Affaritaliani.
Little of the donor’s body survives. According to Tuningblog, only the roof, the side windows, the windscreen and the door mirrors with their bases are kept, and the rest of the body is new, including retractable headlamps and active aerodynamic elements. The wheels measure 20 inches. The brakes are reinforced. Owners can bring their own Gallardo or ask the atelier to find one.
540 or 560 CV from a V10 that revs to 8,500 rpm
The engine remains a naturally aspirated 5.0-litre V10. Italtecnica has reworked it, and it is “dichiarato capace di raggiungere 8.500 giri/min”, declared capable of 8,500 rpm, Affaritaliani writes. There are two versions: the GT, with 540 CV, and the Performance, with 560 CV, in metric horsepower, the figures given by Affaritaliani, Tuningblog and Supercars.net. The gearbox is manual. Tuningblog adds an open gate for the gear lever, two suspension settings, Comfort and Sport, and a rear window that opens over the engine.
Supercars.net puts the starting price at €900,000, “excluding taxes and the donor vehicle”, and Tuningblog gives the same figure. CAVËN’s page lists no price, and no delivery dates have been published.
Chapter One of a Designer Series, shown in Las Vegas
CAVËN describes itself as “a creative engineering studio working across automotive design”, and its page says Hommage 26 “marks Chapter One of the CAVËN Atelier Designer Series”. The next chapter is planned for 2027, Tuningblog reports. The debut came on a busy weekend at the Wynn Golf Club, where Karma Automotive showed Eximius 1, a one-off four-seat track car with “nearly 1200hp” according to its release, and where Aston Martin had announced the global debut of the Valhalla Spider.
The Luxury.it perspective
Hommage 26 is a designer’s second look at his own work. The mechanical base, a Gallardo with its V10 and manual gearbox, is a car already found in many collections, and the new value lies in the body and in the name behind it. Twenty-five cars is a small run. Each one starts from a car its owner supplies, which makes every example a commission as much as a purchase, at a reported €900,000 before taxes and the donor car. What sets the project apart is authorship: the man who drew the 1998 design is the one revisiting it. CAVËN has called this the first chapter, so 2027 is the next date to watch.
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