The V10 Lamborghini Gallardo, with its permanent four-wheel drive, has become the most successful Lamborghini model of all time. Starting with the original Gallardo Coupé launched in 2003, the model range was extended with Spyder and Superleggera models as well as special editions such as the Gallardo SE and Nera.

The current Gallardo LP 560-4 Coupé was launched in 2007 with increased power denoted by its ‘560’ badge, and permanent four-wheel drive signified by the ‘4’. The same enhanced performance and technical modifications characterize the LP 560-4 Spyder, which was announced in 2008.

The limited edition two-wheel drive LP 550-2 Valentino Balboni was revealed in 2009 and at the most recent worldwide premiere at Geneva Auto Salon this year Lamborghini presented the Gallardo LP 570-4 Superleggera: a lightweight version of the already lean Gallardo LP 560-4, with a top speed of 325 km/h and acceleration from 0-100 km/h of 3.4 seconds.

All clients are able to take advantage of the Ad Personam program, which allows owners to customize further their Lamborghini car to create a unique super sports car.

“Production of car number 10,000 is a very important milestone for Lamborghini,” said Stephan Winkelmann, President and CEO of Automobili Lamborghini. “The Lamborghini brand is extreme, uncompromising and Italian, and the Lamborghini Gallardo has played an exemplary role in defining and delivering our brand reputation into our worldwide markets. Today Lamborghini is represented in 45 countries by over 120 dealers, with the strength and presence of the Gallardo product playing a significant role in the growth and recognition of our brand.”

The Lamborghini Gallardo has won numerous international awards for its dynamic performance, design and brand integrity, from media, international automotive groups and design councils. The Lamborghini Gallardo has been famously featured in music videos and films, and its client list features numerous celebrities, sports stars and VIPs.

A couple of Gallardo have been donated to the Italian state police, and a race version of the Gallardo LP 560-4 features in the Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo: the one-make race series running in Europe launched by Automobili Lamborghini in 2009.

The achieved record with the Gallardo number 10,000, in yellow “Midas” and destined for China, will be celebrated also during the ‘Lamborghini Day’ in Shanghai, 25th June, before being delivered to its owner. In the first event of its kind in China, Lamborghini will showcase eight cars from its super sports car range.

Source: [Auto Talk]

But what to buy?

A Lamborghini. Yes, how about a nice Lambo for the six-car garage?

You could wait for the new version of the Murcielago supercar, called the Jota, out in a year or so. Patience probably clashes with your designer duds, though.

Instead, try the latest toy off the line in Sant’Agata Bolognese, Italy — the LP 570-4 Superleggera, a top-line version of the Gallardo coupe that was released three years ago. It’s got “super” in the name after all, a good start.

Superleggera means “super light” in Italian and Lamborghini surgeons have sculpted away 154 excess pounds. That’s the equivalent of losing a supermodel, her toy dog, oversized Balenciaga purse and emotional baggage.

Carbon Fiber

Light cars handle better and are quicker from a dead stop, but replacing steel with aluminum and carbon fiber is expensive. For the Superleggera’s premium you get sheets of weaved carbon fiber inside and out, so gorgeously sculpted you could hang one of the carbon-encased side mirrors on the wall alongside the Matisse. You’ll also find the pricy material on the rear wing and seat backs.

Not including fluids like gasoline and oil, the car weighs less than 3,000 pounds, the lightest car Lamborghini makes.

But you still get air conditioning and auto windows.

So, this is luxury?

It is when you live in a world of bragging rights where the winner is measured in tenths of a second. The LP 570-4’s mid- mounted V-10 is up-rated to 562 horsepower, and 60 mph will show on the speedometer in about 3.3 seconds.

Nuclear Green

While you can still buy it in colors that don’t exist in nature (nuclear green for example), the Superleggera is a serious sports machine, in direct competition with the Ferrari 430 Scuderia, also a light-weight version of a popular road- going car.

Lamborghini execs are well aware of the brands past reputation as a favorite among urban cowboys with a penchant for thick gold-rope chains and illegal pixie powder. They are working to be taken seriously by the car cognoscenti, and the Superleggera has appeal that transcends the Miami Beach crowd.

Older Lamborghinis were mostly designed for top speed, and this one will hit 202 mph if you could only find the road. Engineers are now aiming for superior handling and cool design.

The Gallardo is undeniably exotic-looking, an atomic wedge meant to slice through air. Yet unlike older Lamborghinis such as the Diablo, it lacks the oversized wing and frivolous details. It’s more serious and much cooler.

Racetrack Test

I was only allowed to drive it on the racetrack, away from bumpy roads and traffic jams. From the moment I closed the featherweight door and tried to position myself in the tight cocoon, my senses were on high alert. I couldn’t quite get comfortable with my head brushing the roof (I’m not sure how you’d manage a helmet). The experience is more boot-camp bossing than champagne cosseting.

Soon I was tearing into tight corners, slithering onto the inside curbing and then going hard on the gas, allowing the car to slide to the opposite side of the track. Peals of rubber sounded like gun shots.

Like all Lamborghinis, this is all-wheel-drive, but the persistent understeer of previous models is mostly gone. Handling was spirited and predictable. The car’s lightness is abetted by a tweaked suspension, as unforgiving as a drill instructor.

Source: [Bloomberg News]

At day’s end, the obscenely wide, profusely angular profile recedes anonymously into more plebian southbound traffic on California Interstate 15 – sort of. From a distance, the best clues as to its identity might be triangular LED arrays embedded in the head- and tail lamps. Possibly the elusive silhouette of a massive carbon wing sprouting behind the hexagonally faceted decklid like some endoskeletal extrusion. Were someone to come close enough, you know, in the dark.

For your part, you keep your distance. Over the last seven or eight hours you’ve developed a distinct driving ethos, one that keeps as much distance as possible between yourself and any and all surrounding traffic. This helps prevent any unthinkable sorts of incidents like blown semi tires pealing off and raking across expensive carbon panels, or the odd gawker careening into your lane as he snap pics with a cell phone while unwittingly steering with his eyes. (Turns out that happens more often than you may have expected.)

Under cover of night, some might feel inclined to spear the far left lanes and unleash 12-cylinder hell. You know better. You cruise the number-two in sixth gear, tach needle barely cresting 3000 rpm, a hypnotic thrum from the rear-mid-mount V12 coursing through the cockpit in overlaying pulses like waves lapping across a sonic beach.

Fixed-back carbon bucket seats, trimmed in copious velvet Alcantara, cradle your posterior. Lateral support for even your fashionably spindly frame is quite good, but after a full day of driving, your backside is sore. And your right heel has become uncomfortably tenderized from acting as a fulcrum against that godawful-stiff gas pedal – prodding, modulating, and flat-out stomping to induce the occasional fit of laughter).

Had you doubts, the Murciélago LP 670-4 SuperVeloce is no luxury car in the traditional sense, no cosseting sissy-boy GT. What it is is simply the most pissed-off, aurally outlandish, wet-your-pants-fast super sports car to come carted off the Sant’Agata Bolognese assembly line. Ever. That should say a lot.

Yeah, when the standard Murci just isn’t outrageous enough – or maybe just a tad too posh – the SV strategically puts the hard in the hardcore. Its 6.5-liter engine makes 670 cavallo vapore, translating to an equal 670 metric horsepower – up from 640 hp. The EPA speculates it’ll net about 11 mpg combined fuel economy. It costs $450,000 to start – before you add any options, destination charges, or a $5,400 gas-guzzler tax.

For many, initial reaction to these figures might be horror or disdain. Possibly even horrified disdain. But the SV really doesn’t care for mortal financial insecurities. And it really doesn’t care what people think. It only wants to be fed – on petrol and pavement, miles upon miles upon miles, any and all indigenous flying insect life, sand and gravel, puppies. (OK, I made that last one up.)

There persists a stereotype for Lamborghini buyers. Historically it’s the low-buttoned silk shirt, the obligatory tuft of chest hair, the gold chain, and silk pants. For the well-moneyed, the car might be considered more fashion accessory than mode of transport – it’s even been marketed as such by S.Agata itself. The world’s greatest automotive injustice could potentially be that 95 percent of these cars will end up serving time doing a 45-mph V-max on some neon-lit downtown social strip like Ocean Drive in South Beach or Sunset in Hollywood. It’s like putting a thoroughbred to pasture on a putting green. Wrong, abusive even.

But where can you go to really drive the thing? Nowhere, of course – or more accurately, the middle of it. The California high desert seems ideal with its lonely mountain roads and long, wind-swept stretches.

Equipped as it is with the massive Aeropak wing, the SV, according to Lamborghini, is capable of a mere 209- mph top speed. Without the wing it’ll supposedly top out at 212, but without the downforce afforded by this rear accoutrement, could squirm a little at that velocity. Frightening stuff.

At lower velocities the steering, in spite of power assistance, is ponderous and massively deliberate. At speeds under 25 mph the thing handles like a battleship – and wearing this paint it comes dressed appropriately. Flipping three- and four-point turns on gravelstrewn desert roads for impatiently screaming photographers is likely to inflame your carpal-tunnel.

At speed, the ratios tighten up considerably to offer seemingly clairvoyant levels of response. Mere millimeters of steering angle and the vehicle tracks. On long-sweeping sections or mildly decreasing-radius ’pins, the SV tracks like a slot car. I mean, there’s no possible way you’d be able to lose it, right? It feels like the road itself would sooner lose traction on the Earth’s crust, the Lambo’s 335-width rear Pirelli Rossos flinging ribbons of tarmac into the desert as the SV snarls cartoonishly toward an unmoving horizon.

On tighter roads the proposition becomes more frightening, mainly due to the Murci’s supersized sports car footprint. It’s got more or less the same front and rear track as a Porsche Cayenne SUV with a little less wheelbase, and much, much lower to the ground.

Whatever the case, you’re having a hard time thinking of a more convincing supercar. A bit slower maybe, but the SV is still more visually convincing than the hamloaf styling of a Bugatti Veyron. The Koenigseggs or Paganis of the world might offer comparable performance – but what do we see, a handful of those every year? This SV is one of 350 to be built. And anyway, it’s a Lambo. It’s got staying power.

Dipping now into the basin that holds the greater metro area surrounding Los Angeles, you dip into the throttle a little bit deeper. In sixth gear, acceleration is languid but builds steadily, the thrumming of the engine peaking to a long-winded roar that rises exponentially in pitch.

Out of nowhere, a nondescript Japanese sedan pulls up alongside you. Dad, sitting in the front seat, recognizes the silhouette and points excitedly. A small, wide-eyed face peers out the back window, nose pressed against the glass.

You’ve been pretty good today, you think. Karma should be back on your side after showing so much restraint. May as well give the kid a show.

Extending two fingers on your left hand, you give the column-mounted carbon shift paddle a rapid click click click. The gearbox instantly shifts down three gears and the engine screams. Hard in the throttle, you watch the tach needle spike past 5000 rpm and whip toward redline with a sound like the sky tearing open. Your head hits the Alcantara headrest; you upshift, then upshift again as the SV leaps two, six, twelve car lengths ahead and disappears into the night.

It’s only later that you realize the poor kid will probably never be the same. Your work today is done.

Source: [European Car]

Named after the famed Lamborghini test driver, the special edition Gallardo LP550-2 is a rear-wheel drive super car.  Not having the all-wheel drive performance offered in the normal Gallardo, Lamborghini had to add specially tuned suspension components. New springs, dampers, stabilizers, and special Pirelli P Zero tires allow the Gallardo Valentino to offer handling performance that rivals the all-wheel drive version.

Power comes courtesy of a 5.2 liter V10 monster, capable of producing 550 horsepower and over 500 lb ft of torque. The powerful engine paired with the unique suspension setup of the Valentino Balboni allows the car to rocket from 0-60 in 3.9 seconds and a top speed of 199 miles per hour. This type of performance in a rear-wheel drive application makes it intimidating, even to the most seasoned driver.

The looks of the Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni stay true to the original Gallardo, featuring angular design, menacing stance, and refined yet functional interior. The exterior features a unique paint combination of bright orange and a single white stripe down the middle of the hood, which carries over onto the interior seats.  Inside the engine bay the V10 is carefully wrapped in carbon fiber molding and covered with a see through deck.

Talk around the water cooler is that this special edition Lamborghini isn’t for every Lambo buyer and if not careful could be the nail in the coffin. It’s an incredible amount of power delivered to just 2 corners of a tightly wound package. Lamborghini offers an off/on stability control, which should only be turned off by the most experienced and with plenty of room on the road. Industry analysts who were lucky enough to sit behind the wheel were quick to note that the rear end of this beast was surprisingly well behaved, but if attention is not paid, would quickly catch up to the bumper nose. When a professional is at the controls, the Gallardo Valentino Balboni is the second fastest Lamborghini ever made and capable of 60 ft times faster than the all-wheel drive LP550-2.

Source: [Car Phots]

So the Murcielago in the Quattro Veloce avatar has a whole new front look that has aggressive air intakes, an air splitter along with a redesigned hood. Fresh new wings and a new fuel filler cap make up the sides of the car while at the rear, there’s an oversized diffuser as well quite a large wing.

Powering the Quattro Veloce will be a V12 engine that is housed within a cage again made of carbon fiber. DMC has revealed there’s also a version available that will have a remapped ECU while the package will also include diamond forged carbon fiber rims that boasts of white finish, something that the German tuner says is a world first.

In the interior, the package has on offer custom carbon fiber racing seats complete with a special ostrich leather finish. And for those who haven’t heard much of DMC, the 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost ‘Numero Uno’ has been the creation of this very tuning company.

Source: [Speed Lux]

However, there are some details available pertaining to the new car. Like its going to have a maximum height of around 114 cm and will call upon the same V12 engine that the Italian manufacturer has been using since 2001 to do duty on this car too. The engine however has been tweaked so that it now makes over 700 hp, a figure that will help the new car to hold on to the tag of being the best supercar.

There is some ambiguity as to how Lamborghini intends to cut some of the flab of the new car. While some sources indicate that it’s going to be achieved by the use of a carbon fiber body, others indicate that judicious use of aluminum will help make the new Lamborghini a lean and mean machine.

The car is expected to be unveiled at a big Auto Show like the Paris Motor Show to be held in September. However, those keen to lay their hands on one will have to wait till early 2011 when its likely to begin streaming at showrooms. Lamborghini has made it known that the new car will not cost in excess of 300,000. Also for those who have been saying the new Lamborghini won’t have any Lambo doors, here’s the latest update: the new car will have Lambo doors.

Source: [Speed Lux]

Carbon-fiber is seen by many in the auto industry as one of the most effective ways of reducing vehicle weight and improving fuel economy and emissions levels, but the relative expense of the material means that it’s still reserved for only a handful of high-end production cars. BMW has effectively used carbon-fiber roofs for its M cars to help lower their center of gravity, and Nissan and General Motors have used the composite material to help save weight for the GT-R and ZR1 super cars.

For most automakers, mainstream carbon-fiber use is still several years away but a number of firms are spending up to help turn this trend around. Lamborghini is one such automaker, having already established the Advanced Composite Structures Laboratory (ACSL) at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Now the super car company is in Paris attending at the world’s pre-eminent trade show in this field of technology. Lamborghini is the honored guest of the JEC Composite Show, where Lamborghini’s R&D chief Maurizio Reggiani will be on hand at the automaker’s stand. Also on show will be 2007’s Reventon super car, one of Lamborghini’s most carbon fiber laden models.

Forums taking place around the exhibition will host discussions on the latest processes and findings within this increasingly important field of technology.

Lamborghini first gained experience in the application of carbon fiber back in the 1980s with the Countach. Nowadays, the flagship model Murcielago makes extensive use of the lightweight stuff in its body shell structure. The entire body shell structure of the Murcielago weighs only 668 pounds. A further example is the new Gallardo LP 570-4 Superleggera. Primarily through the increased application of carbon fiber, its weight compared with the base model has been reduced by around 154 pounds. The outcome is improved performance with reduced fuel consumption.

Source: [Motor Authority]

First off, it’s worth noting that the company reorganized its priorities in 2007. Prior to that, they were design, top speed, acceleration, and handling – in that order. But now, citing the fact that there’s really nowhere to explore its cars’ 200-mph-plus speeds, handling and top speed have switched places, so the order looks like this:

1. Design

2. Handling

3. Acceleration

4. Top Speed

You’ll notice that fuel economy didn’t make the top four, but it will be a major focus for the company over the next five years (and probably longer). After all, 550-plus-hp cars and stricter fuel-efficiency regulations don’t tend to jibe very well.

In Europe, Lamborghini has special dispensation as a small automaker to reduce its cars’ CO2 output by 35 percent between 2007 and 2015, rather than meet dramatically stricter regulations in place for larger manufacturers. For the U.S., Reggiani tells us that’s it’s still up to the EPA to decide whether Lamborghini will have to meet fuel-economy hurdles as an individual company, or whether it will be held to one overall figure based on an average of all the VW Group brands sold here.

Twenty percent of the total 35-percent reduction in CO2 mentioned has already been achieved, largely due to fitting direct injection to the Gallardo’s V-10 when the LP560-4 model was launched. But the next 15 percent is much harder, says Reggiani. Further gains will come from additional increases in engine efficiency, such as friction reduction, and plan on direct injection appearing on the company’s V-12 when the Murciélago replacement launches. (That should happen in the next 12 to 18 months.) Lamborghini is somewhat surprisingly working on far more mainstream technologies, too, such as stop/start capability to thrift fuel in urban settings, cylinder deactivation – so that both the V-10 and the V-12 can operate on half as many cylinders – E85 compatibility, and possibly even a mild-hybrid solution. Against the pervasive trend in the industry, Reggiani says that there are no plans for forced induction at this point. Although that certainly is one way to reduce emissions, he says the company simply isn’t willing to sacrifice either engine’s fabulous linearity or their awe-inspiring wail. In short, the naturally aspirated V-10 and V-12 will continue.

Weight-Loss Strategy to Include More Carbon Fiber

Reggiani says Lambo is determined to offset any weight gains, particularly from a hybrid system, by reductions elsewhere in the car. Future cars “have to be lighter,” he says. To that end, he believes carbon fiber will be the major enabler of the weight-reduction goal, as witnessed by Lamborghini’s recent collaboration with the University of Washington and Boeing to create the ACSL, or Automobili Lamborghini Composite Structures Laboratory. The purpose of the lab is to leverage the aerospace industry’s extensive carbon-fiber experience to find even more efficient ways to use it in automobiles. Reggiani cites studies predicting that the cost of carbon fiber will decline significantly by the 2012-2014 timeframe, at which point it’s predicted to be no more expensive than aluminum. By then, he wants to have come up with more creative ways of using the stuff, as its material properties, unlike those of aluminum, can be changed dramatically based on construction and shape.

How about getting rid of all-wheel drive as a weight reducer? Not likely. “You have to put the power to the ground,” Reggiani says, “and when the tires are a-spinning all the time, you lose out on acceleration.” (See company priority No. 3). Certainly all-wheel drive is a major enabler of blistering standing-start acceleration, which is how the Gallardo LP570-4 Superleggera is predicted to hurl to 60 mph in 2.9 seconds. Plus, Lamborghini prefers four-wheel traction for racetrack situations, too, where it certainly makes its cars more goof-proof and easier to safely exploit, although we generally prefer hairier rear-drivers on-track.

Et Tu, Lamborghini?

We pointed out that Lambo’s Italian neighbors, Ferrari, have basically abandoned the use of manual transmissions, and Reggiani concedes that Lamborghini likely will eventually follow suit; he says manual transmissions are fitted to less than five percent of the firm’s cars. Although he’s still somewhat defensive about the common belief that dual-clutch automated manuals with seven speeds or more – such as Porsche’s PDK – are necessarily better than Lambo’s six-speed single-clutch unit. He says Lamborghini is opposed to unequal gear steps, such as Porsche’s thrifty and ultra-tall seventh ratio, and also makes note that the Porsche gearbox is roughly 50 pounds heavier than the Lambo six-speed. But we tend to side with Porsche on this one – use gears one through six for acceleration, and reserve seventh as purely for fuel economy.

Lamborghinis with cylinder deactivation, the exclusive use of automatics, and stop/start functionality? If anything, this proves that the automotive future will be anything but business as usual.

Source: [Car and Driver]

Maurizio Reggiani, the director of research and development at Lamborghini, says in an interview with the magazine that they will likely follow Ferrari in ending their manual transmission. He stated that manual transmissions are fitted to less than five percent of the firm’s cars. Other technologies to be implemented are systems like stop/start capability to thrift fuel in urban settings, cylinder deactivation – the V10 and V12 will then operate on half as many cylinders, E85 compatibility, and even a mild-hybrid solution.

Lamborghini was founded in 1963 by manufacturing magnate Ferruccio Lamborghini. It has changed ownership numerous times since, most recently becoming a subsidiary of German car manufacturer AUDI AG (itself a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group).

Source: [Domestic Fuel]

With all the buzz about electric supercars at the Geneva show, you can almost forget it’s possible to buy an old fashioned V-10 screamer these days. Enter the new Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Superleggera.

Instead of adding electronics and complexity, Lamborghini would rather reduce weight and increase horsepower. So we’ve got 562 hp to move a mere 2954 pounds of carbon fiber and aluminum around your favorite back roads. Naturally Lamborghini will let customers add a navigation system or the brand’s signature front end lifting system for people who aren’t afraid to negate the weight savings of the Superleggera package.

In addition to being faster than the old Gallardo Superleggera (the 570-4 does 0-60 mph in 3.4 seconds) the LP570-4 is also easier on the environment; CO2 emissions are down 20% and fuel economy is up by 2 mpg (to 14 mpg in the city!) for the automatic transmission cars. And the car will top out at 202 mph if you can find enough open road, so performance certainly isn’t sacrificed for fuel economy.

If you aren’t willing to consider a hybrid just yet, Lamborghini may be your best bet for a slightly more socially conscious supercar. Even if you don’t particularly care about the environmental benefits, it’s nice to see an automaker offering a lighter version of a production car. We can all agree with that plan.

Source: [Automobile Magazine]