To reverse engineer a car is a big accomplishment. Lots of knowledge is gained and that can be used to create something new and wonderful. Or, if you're an Iranian firm looking to make an odd splash, start with a Lamborghini Murciélago and reverse engineer to build...a Lamborghini Murciélago. Only worse.

Speaking with Russia Today in an interview published Saturday, the leader and designer of the project, Masoud Moradi, said the goal was to create an Iranian Lamborghini using the Murciélago, in this case the SuperVeloce model, as a guide. In fact, the car you see here was crafted almost entirely from scratch. Some off-the-shelf parts were used, but none from Lamborghini, and that's especially true in the engine bay.

Normally on a Murciélago, the space between the rear tires is reserved for a mighty 6.5-liter V-12. Here, Moradi's team instead fitted a 3.8-liter V-6 plucked from a Hyundai. The reasoning is that such an engine would be able to repair easily at any shop. That's true, but it's just not the sort of engine you expect to find powering a Murciélago, even one that's been "reverse engineered."

Because the car's design is borrowed from on an existing vehicle, Moradi's team has spent zero time testing it. Nevertheless, he's confident it could hit a top speed of 175 mph, which is well short of the 210 mph that the Murciélago SV can hit. Of course, with a V-6 sitting back there, it was never going to drive anything like a real Lamborghini.

So why go to all the trouble? Moradi added that the team’s goal was to obtain the technical knowledge and methods for the construction of a high-performance vehicle and then hopefully use this knowledge for another vehicle, possibly from an Iranian automaker. Our advice for any budding automotive startups looking to make a name, this is not the way to do it.