From the front, Tesla’s new Roadster looks a lot like a Lamborghini Murciélago. Late on Thursday night, shortly after the car’s kickflip reveal at SpaceX’s test site in McGregor, Texas, product designer Jarrad Grigg posted two side-by-side comparisons on X. He wrote that the new design looks like “the spiritual successor to the Lamborghini Murciélago,” and the post passed 250,000 views by Friday afternoon.

The new car shares almost nothing with the red Roadster prototype Tesla showed in 2017. Tesla’s design post on X credits two jets for the new shape, the SR-71 and the F-35.

The Roadster Shares the Murciélago’s Hood Lines and Upward Doors

The Roadster and the Murciélago follow the same front-end recipe. Each has a flat center hood panel bordered by creases, with the fenders rising as separate planes on either side and meeting the nose in angled corners. Both windshields start well forward, and both cars open their doors upward.

Grigg, who runs the Australian design studio OVRFLO, put a silver Murciélago above Tesla’s studio images of the Roadster, once from the front three-quarter and once head-on. The head-on pair shows the closest match. The Roadster’s corner lights sit in the same notch between hood and fender where the Murciélago’s headlamps sit.

SlashGear’s Madeline Cuccio had made the same comparison during the livestream, writing in the site’s live blog that “the front end is reminiscent of a Lamborghini Murcielago.” Fifteen minutes after Grigg’s post, David Tracy at The Autopian published his own list of lookalikes and pointed to the Murciélago’s hood and headlight shapes.

The Murciélago, which Luc Donckerwolke designed and Lamborghini launched in 2001, has glass headlamps and two large intakes low in its bumper. The Roadster runs a thin light bar across its nose and hides its main headlights, which pop down rather than up. Below the bar, the lower nose is a dark band with openings for the front intake.

Both cars move their bodywork for aero. The Murciélago raises a rear wing and its shoulder air intakes at speed. Top Gear reports movable grilles in the Roadster’s front intake and a swiveling hood vent. Its rear wing has low-drag and high-downforce modes.

Lamborghini Already Built a Jet-Inspired Murciélago, the 2007 Reventón

Tesla’s jet references have a Lamborghini precedent in the Reventón, which took the Murciélago LP640’s technical base to the 2007 Frankfurt motor show in a new body that Lamborghini said was inspired by the latest aeronautics. All 20 planned cars were pre-sold at €1 million plus taxes.

Nik Page put a Reventón above the new Roadster in a reply to Grigg on Friday and said the Tesla is even closer to that car. Grigg agreed. The Reventón’s nose is more faceted than the Murciélago’s, with a pointed center section and sharp-edged intakes. Its cabin carried three LCD instrument screens, which Lamborghini’s launch text likened to a modern airplane’s.

Another reply saw the Ferrari Testarossa in the Roadster’s squared-off tail, and Grigg agreed with that one too.

Tesla Traded the 2017 Roadster’s Curves for Flat Planes and Two Seats

The 2017 prototype was a soft, rounded 2+2 with a removable glass roof. The new Roadster is an angular two-seater. Tesla’s post on X Thursday night said its design language had evolved through the Cybertruck, Cybercab and Optimus, and that “Roadster is inspired by the SR-71 & F-35.”

That 2017 car rolled out of a Semi trailer at the end of Tesla’s truck event, painted red, with slim headlights and fenders that bulge over the wheels. The new one is white, with flat panels meeting at hard creases. Performance and Thrust versions seat two, and the Rocket gives up its passenger seat for an extra 106-gallon (400-liter) nitrogen tank.

When Devsque replied to Grigg with a photo of a white 2017 prototype on display, Grigg called the old car a beautiful design that now looks a bit dated.

Tesla named a car on stage too. SlashGear’s live blog lists James Bond’s underwater Lotus among the inspirations, and Jalopnik reports the same nod to the Lotus Esprit that turns into a submarine in The Spy Who Loved Me. Top Gear calls the body “a modern interpretation of the Lotus Esprit.” The glass roof panels still come out as a T-top, and Top Gear says they stow in the trunk.

EVXL’s Take

Tesla’s jet references don’t make the Roadster original. Lamborghini restyled the Murciélago around modern aircraft for the Reventón in 2007, so a Tesla drawn from fighter jets and a Bond-film Lotus was always going to land near those two cars. The resemblance doesn’t hurt it. I like this shape far more than the 2017 prototype, which looked to me like a Model S somebody had sat on. But Tesla’s design post names two jets and no Lamborghini, and the Lamborghini is what most people saw first. Tesla asks for $50,000 within 10 days of a reservation. I think the face will sell more of those than the SR-71 line will.

Sources: Jarrad Grigg on X, Nik Page on X, Devsque on X, Tesla on X, The Autopian, SlashGear, Top Gear, Jalopnik, The Auto Channel

EVXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.