Fabrizio Giugiaro, who designed the original Lamborghini Gallardo at Italdesign, has redrawn it for CAVËN Atelier. The HOMMAGE 26 has a new carbon body, a manual V10 that revs to 8,500 rpm and up to 560 hp. Only 25 will be built, each from a first-generation Gallardo, starting at €900,000 (about $1,005,000) before taxes and the donor car.
The man who designed the Lamborghini Gallardo has had another go at it. CAVËN Atelier showed the HOMMAGE 26 at the Concours at Wynn Las Vegas on Oct 31, 2026. It's a first-generation Gallardo rebodied in carbon fiber by Fabrizio Giugiaro and his studio, GFG Style. Under the new body is a reworked 5.0-liter V10 that now revs to 8,500 rpm, still with a manual gearbox. CAVËN says it will build 25, starting at €900,000 before taxes and the donor car. That's about $1,005,000 at the European Central Bank's Oct 30, 2026 exchange rate (Supercars.net, CAVËN Atelier).
It's the first car from CAVËN Atelier and Chapter One of what the company calls its Designer Series. The idea is to bring a significant car's original designer back to finish what they started, this time without the cost targets and factory limits they worked under the first time. CAVËN calls the idea "Design Authorship." Its approach to the cars themselves is called "Respectful Evolution." CURATED, the Miami dealer co-founded by John Temerian, will represent CAVËN Atelier in the United States.
Only five things carry over from the donor's body: the roof, the side windows, the windshield, the mirrors and the mirror bases. Everything else is new carbon fiber. Giugiaro kept the front close to his original drawing and redesigned the rear completely. The new body adds pop-down headlights and active aero flaps. Over the engine there's now an opening rear window, and the tail gets new light bars. Inside, there's a gated manual shifter, an Alcantara-trimmed cabin and sill plates that say HOMMAGE 26.
CAVËN says the specs could still change while the prototype is being developed. It hasn't given weight, performance figures or a delivery date. Its own wording says a lot about the brief: the goal is "a car that creates reasons to drive it rather than reasons to preserve it" (CAVËN Atelier).
The Gallardo started as a sketch at Italdesign Giugiaro. CAVËN and both reports on the reveal date Giugiaro's concept to 1998. Luc Donckerwolke, Lamborghini's design director at the time, remembered it slightly differently in 2003. He said Lamborghini launched the project in 1999 by asking Italdesign for a proposal, with Fabrizio Giugiaro managing the program. Giugiaro said his team got "a very free hand" (Auto&Design via Autodesign Magazine). The dates don't really conflict. Audi finished buying Lamborghini in 1998, and Italdesign's work began around the change of ownership. Before that, Italdesign had shown the V10 Calà concept at Geneva in 1995 (WhichCar).
The part that sets up HOMMAGE 26 is what happened next. By Donckerwolke's account, Lamborghini's own studio reworked the tail and flanks of Italdesign's full-size model before the car went into production. The Gallardo launched at Geneva in 2003 with 500 hp, later 520 hp. More than 14,000 were built through 2013, making it the best-selling Lamborghini of its time (Giorgetto & Fabrizio Giugiaro).
So the front of HOMMAGE 26 is close to what Giugiaro first drew, and the rear is the part of the car he never got to finish. The only coverage that quotes him is a sponsored article on Classic Driver, which describes it as a paid partnership. In it, Giugiaro calls the project "an opportunity to show the world that many things can become better and better if we continue working on them with care, and in a delicate way." He also calls it a beautiful challenge, because he's evolving an archived concept rather than starting over (Classic Driver, sponsored).
GFG Style, the studio Fabrizio runs with his father Giorgetto, has been busy with this kind of work. The week before Las Vegas, it showed the Peralta D at Mexico's Pastejé Automotive Invitational, a one-off four-seat coupe with a hand-hammered copper body (GFG Style). HOMMAGE 26 is the first time it has gone back to one of the family's own famous production cars.
Wynn and Autoweek had both listed a CAVËN Atelier world premiere at the concours, but neither said what the car was (Wynn Las Vegas, Autoweek). CAVËN itself is new. It started in 2025 as an invitation-only car and lifestyle club in Marbella, Spain, and it co-hosted the Concurso de Elegancia Costa del Sol a week before Las Vegas. So far, the only independent report on the car is from Supercars.net. The rest of the detail comes from CAVËN and the sponsored Classic Driver piece. We'll add more reporting as it appears.
A lot of tuners can rebody a Gallardo. Only one of them drew the original, and that's what CAVËN is really selling. It's also why we think HOMMAGE 26 is more interesting than most of the restomods it will be compared with. The closest rival is Tedson Motors' Etna, a Croatian Gallardo restomod announced in February 2025. It promises about 600 hp and more than 10,000 rpm and is priced around $800,000 plus the donor. But Tedson uses only cars with the e-gear automated manual and leaves the true manuals alone (CarBuzz). CAVËN is going the other way: lower revs, a manual and the original designer's name. That's the stronger pitch for collectors.
We'd still be careful at this stage. The company is less than two years old, the specs are provisional, and it hasn't given a delivery schedule. The only quotes from Giugiaro so far are in paid content. None of that is a red flag, but it's normal to want more before handing over about $1,000,000.
Start with the donor. On Oct 31, 2026, our tracker had 46 first-generation Gallardos (2004 to 2008 model years) listed for sale in the US. The median asking price was about $126,000, and the range ran from $87,900 to about $320,000. These are asking prices, not sales. A good donor plus the €900,000 conversion puts a finished car at roughly $1,100,000 to $1,300,000 before taxes, shipping and options. That's about eight to ten times what a clean stock Gallardo is listed for.
The open question is the gearbox. CAVËN hasn't said whether you need a manual donor or whether it can convert a car with the e-gear automated manual. Manual first-generation cars are the ones collectors already pay extra for. If the program needs 25 of them, it will compete for the best cars on the market. For US buyers, CURATED will be the contact. Each car will probably keep its donor's identity, as most restomods do, but CAVËN hasn't said where US cars will be finished or how the conversion is documented. Get that in writing before you send a car to Spain or Italy.
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