What happens when one of Milan’s most celebrated designers encounters a car that defies easy description? For Elena Salmistraro, the answer was immediate, pencil to paper, instinct over intellect, and a creative response that captures something the specification sheet simply cannot. Lamborghini’s new film, Sculpting the Soul, documents that encounter, and the result is as compelling as the car that inspired it.
In it, she reflects on the Fenomeno’s impact and her sources of inspiration, showing where Lamborghini’s design DNA meets the vision of a globally recognised designer whose work spans world-renowned brands, iconic objets d’art, interiors, and large-scale installations.
A few-off model produced in just 29 examples, all of which have already been sold, the Fenomeno marks two significant milestones simultaneously, twenty years of the Lamborghini Centro Stile design centre, and two decades since the Reventón, the brand’s first few-off model, was presented to the world. It arrives as one of the most extreme expressions of Lamborghini’s design language ever committed to metal and carbon fibre.
At its heart sits the most powerful V12 engine in Lamborghini’s history, combined with electric motors for a total power output of 1,080 CV. The hybrid powertrain pushes the Fenomeno into territory that very few road cars have ever occupied, and it does so while wearing a body that takes the brand’s most distinctive stylistic signatures with hexagon motifs, Ypsilon features, dramatic surface geometry and amplifies them without apology. It is, by any measure, a lot of car.
The Fenomeno Effect
Elena Salmistraro has built a reputation for work that engages all the senses, with designs that reward close attention. Her approach is rooted in shape, colour, and what she describes as textural dialogue, and it has earned her recognition across the global design world. She is, in short, exactly the kind of creative mind that a car like the Fenomeno deserves to encounter.
Her reaction to the car was characteristically direct. Rather than reaching for technical language or measured critical analysis, she reached for a pencil. The Fenomeno generated an emotional response that she felt more comfortable expressing through drawing than through words, which, given the quality of her work, is probably the right instinct.
“Fenomeno is so aptly named: it’s something you cannot ignore, a true phenomenon that breaks with ordinary in every dimension. The level of detail is extraordinary — at every turn and from every angle you see its personality, an identity. I am exhilarated by geometric surfaces, lines and the way colour interacts with those and with the hexagon motifs, the Ypsilon features. The Fenomeno is authentic Lamborghini. Its expression is a delight.”
Elena Salmistraro, Designer
Her observation about materials is worth noting too. Carbon fibre, she said, demands a tactile interaction — it is not enough to look at it. The Fenomeno, with its intricate surface detailing and layered geometric language, invites that kind of engagement at every point. It is a car designed to be experienced up close, not admired from a distance.
An Italian Identity
Elena spoke about her own creative process with the same clarity she brought to her response to the car. For her, design begins with a mark on paper and builds outward from there through colour, form, and narrative. It is an approach shaped by a lifetime in Milan, immersed in Italian culture, but also drawn from further afield through nature, mythology, street culture, and the endless visual material that a curious designer finds wherever they look.
“Design for me is a dream. It’s energy and life. Everything I do starts with a mark, a gesture on paper, and every day I am inspired to draw. I say I am not always so good with words — I better express myself through drawings and colours, then I’m always in touch with the narrative. That’s how I feel around Fenomeno: there are no words. I want to touch it and feel it, its lines, surfaces, the interior. The very materials such as carbon fibre demand a tactile interaction.”
Elena Salmistraro, Designer
The Italian connection between designer and car is not incidental. Lamborghini is rooted in the same cultural soil that shaped Elena’s creative outlook and the belief that objects should stir something in the people who encounter them.
Celebrating twenty years of the Lamborghini Centro Stile design centre and two decades since the Reventón set the template for the brand’s few-off programme, it draws on everything Lamborghini has learned about design and performance in that time and concentrates it into 29 examples destined for owners around the world.