You might think this car looks a lot like a 1960 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder but with a fixed roof in place, especially when seen from the front, while the rear comes with two round taillights often seen on both recent and classic Ferrari models, and naturally the knock-off spoke wheels and twin dual tailpipes ... but make no mistake, this is a Lamborghini, and an extremely rare one too.
This is the 1965 Lamborghini 3500 GTZ by Zagato, a coachbuilt custom body designed by Ercole Spada and built by Zagato, based on a 10cm-shortened Lamborghini 350 GT chassis (number 0310). It was completed in November 1965 and made its debut at the 1965 London Motor Show.
This custom Lamborghini 350 GT was finished in white over a black vinyl interior, after appearing at multiple motor shows, the car ended up with ex-race driver Marchese Gerino Gerini, who also happened to be Lamborghini's official agent in Milan in the Sixties, he later sold it to a customer in Australia, who had the car converted to RHD and repainted in bright red.
In 2006 the car was bought by a European collector who sent it to the Netherlands to be restored to more or less factory spec again, so back to LHD and repainted in the factory original white, although he did opt for a grey leather interior instead of the original black vinyl, a good option if you ask me, the car looks amazing like this, today this very rare Lamborghini is located in the United States.
At one point, rumor had it that this white Lamborghini 3500 GTZ was powered by the enlarged 4-Liter V12 engine that was just made available in the Lamborghini 400 GT (the same engine would later be used in the 400 GT 2+2), but paperwork shows that chassis 0310 came with engine number 0301, a 3.5-Liter V12 with Repco pistons.
Now we finally have a 1/18 scale model of this very early, rare Lamborghini GT, made by Maxima Scale Models, a company I personally never heard of before, but they have been making some rather special models on a 1/18 scale, it seems, and this Lamborghini 3500 GTZ sure is special.
From what I can see, they did a nice job on this Lamborghini GT, the overall look and feel of the model seems to be correct when compared to photographs of this car, even the reverse light at the rear is positioned correctly, off-center, and the real car also wears the ‘3500 GTZ’ license plate, so it all seems to be correct when it comes to these details.
Do keep in mind this is a sealed model, nothing opens, and while you can see the grey interior with the period-correct wood grain on the dashboard and steering wheel, you can’t take a look at the V12 hiding underneath the engine cover at the front, this car was based on the Lamborghini 350 GT, which was a comfortable Gran Turismo with the 3.4-Liter engine mounted at the front.
So, is this a must-have model for your collection? Well, in my case, it is. This is part of the early history of Automobili Lamborghini SpA, the only partnership with Zagato Ferruccio Lamborghini ever saw, and while two cars were built in 1965, only one survives today, and it is finished in white over grey, just like this scale model, so I just had to add it to the collection.
Originally released in December 2025.
| Exterior | 8/10 | |
| Interior | 7/10 | |
| Engine | Not visible | |
| Accuracy | 8/10 | |
| Overall rating | 7/10 | |