Lamborghini sells real-life car coupled with NFT

The NFT (non-fungible token) market is constantly expanding. Now, car manufacturers Lamborghini have got in on the trend.

Many NFTs come with something tangible as an added ‘bonus’. For instance, we saw that for its very first NFT series, three of the NFTs dropped by the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One team came with a physical item as well.

Less than a month before the Mercedes NFT drop, Italian car manufacturer Automobili Lamborghini turned the game on its head by auctioning off the very last Aventador Ultimae Coupé it will ever manufacture, along with a unique NFT created and designed for the Metaverse. This makes it the world’s very first NFT ever to be auctioned with a physical super sports car.

The final bidding price? A cool $1.6 million.

The end of an era for Lamborghini

2022 is to be the last year for Lamborghini’s V-12 combustion engine cars. To mark this milestone, Lamborghini auctioned its very last Aventador LP 780-4 Ultimae Coupè along with an NFT. The project combines music, design, and cutting-edge technology. It is in being carried out partnership with DJ Steve Aoki, artist Krista Kim, and digital content studio and brand storytelling agency INVNT Group.

The NFT features a digital version of the real Aventador, placed into a digital world which resembles Mars. Kim’s signature colour gradient appears on both the NFT and the real-life Aventador. Aoki created the music for the NFT, and also produced an exclusive soundtrack for the car. They also worked with Lamborghini’s customisation program, called Ad Personam, on the exterior and interior of the actual car.

The auction took place at RM Sotheby’s in April.

Apart from the physical car and the NFT, the auction winner has been given the chance to meet (virtually) with Aoki and Kim. They will also receive a private (physical) tour of the Lamborghini Museum. Furthermore, they will be eligible for a preview of future limited-edition Lamborghini cars and will enjoy access to certain VIP services.

The real-life car will be manufactured later this year and should be in the purchaser’s hands by September.

Lamborghini’s first NFT project

This is not Lamborghini’s first NFT project. In fact, the car company issued five striking Lamborghini Ultimae photos created by Swiss artist/photographer Fabian Oefner in February.

The ‘Space Time Memory’ collection consisted of both a physical element and a NFT component. The physical component being the ‘Space Key’ – a piece of carbon fibre which the car manufacture had sent to the International Space Station in 2020, as a part of a research project. Upon their return to Earth seven month later, the keys were subsequently engraved with a QR code that links to its corresponding NFT – a photo of a Lamborghini taking off into outer space. As it blasts off, parts of the car shoot away like the flame of a rocket.

Although it may seem that the NFT is a computer-generated image, in actual fact, all the components were created by Oefner who shot over 1,500 separate parts of an actual car. Each hyper-realistic photo is made up of over 600 million pixels, making the resolution huge. If you zoom in, you can discover more and more hidden details.