Yes, a Lambo can conquer a glacier!

Olsson put 16mm spikes on a Murcielago and took it up a giant slalom ski run. Picture: Jon Olsson

Olsson put 16mm spikes on a Murcielago and took it up a giant slalom ski run. Picture: Jon Olsson

Published May 17, 2016

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Fonna Glacier, Norway - Like most Swedes, professional freestyle skier Jon Olsson has an affinity for snow. It's simply his favourite playground.

He also has an obsession with cars. Very fast cars. Not just owning them and driving them flat out (his second favourite playground is the Gotland Ring at Kappelshamn on the Swedish island of Gotland) but also customising them, often into outrageous caricatures of their former selves.

So it was perhaps inevitable that he would combine his two passions to create a supercar snowmobile.

This three-year build started as a rather ratty second-hand Lamborghini Murcielago LP640, which was affordable because it needed a lot of TLC - but it was complete, which is a very good start for a project.

Also read: Lamborghini goes bigger with Murciélago LP640

The build was entrusted to an English customiser who'd offered to do it free in exchange for the publicity Olsson's cars always attract. It took him a year to strip the Murcielago down to the last nut and bolt, by which time he was broke and selling bits of the car to pay the rent.

At which point Onder Akay of Swedish tuning house Select Cars Syd wound up taking charge of a very complicated three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. He said later he would never have taken it on, had he known that not a single component was marked and that some unique custom parts were missing and would have to be re-created from scratch.

Because of that the job took another two years and went from a budget build to what Olsson reckons is probably the most expensive Murcielago on the planet.

Authoritative

The originally all-wheel drive 6.5-litre LP640 V12 has been converted to rear-wheel drive only, and speaks to the world through an authoritative IPE exhaust system. It wears a full carbon-fibre aero kit designed by DMG for the LP670, as well as one of Olsson's signature roof-mounted equipment carriers, and runs forged-alloy ADV1 rims over an AP Racing big brake kit.

The interior is trimmed throughout in genuine suede with LP670 custom seats by Adam Rasmussen, a Lamborghini Gallardo carbon-fibre steering wheel, carbon-fibre door panels and custom-fit BRL audio - Olsson has some scathing things to say about the Murcielago's standard sound system.

And this is where the snow comes in

Olsson had special snow tyres with 16mm spikes fitted and took the car to the Fonna Glacier ski resort on the west coast of Norway, to try to drive it up a glacier, through a gigantic slalom course.

After battling grotty weather and too-soft snow for two weeks, Olsson and his video crew were about to give up in disgust when the weather gods finally gave them a break - and the footage you see here is the result.

Motoring.co.za

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