With households across America still decking their halls with jack-o-lanters and all manner of goolish decorations, it may be a tad soon to start thinking about the winter holiday season. But for Lamborghini, Christmas arrives early this year with the launch of the hardcore Balboni edition Gallardo. And to commemorate, Lambo's putting the Santa in Sant'Agata Bolognese with a new collection of holiday ornaments and stocking-stuffers.
Just as it has in years past, Lamborghini has released a new set of tree ornaments, decorative candles, calendars and other paraphernalia, this year carrying the Balboni theme in honor of its legendary test driver and the driver-focused LP550-2 that bears his name. Along with the latest collection of Raging Bull-emblazoned sportswear, the holiday wares are available directly from the Lamborghini Store.
A Lamborghini Murciélago LP640 starts at around $350,000 and can quickly crest $400,000 with the addition of a few options and a dropable top, and the LP640-4 starts at $450,000. That's a lot of coin to be sure, but in the spirit of pulling together to ride out this whole "recession" thing, Lamborghini is looking to ease the blow of $7,000 per month financing with a new 0% offer for the 2009 and 2010 Murciélago coupe and roadster. The Italian supercar maker is offering 0% for up to 60 months for customers with credit scores over 740 and down payments somewhere north of 10% (the press release doesn't provide an exact number). That's a pretty big bargain considering a buyer picking up an LP640 for $400,000 with $80,000 down (20%) for $5,333.33 per month over 60 months, while the typical 5.9% interest rate would bring the monthly payment to $6171.63 with $50,297.67 in accumulated interest over the course of the loan.
Lamborghini is also offering 5.9% interest for up to 12 years for customers with 10% down and a credit score of 700. That makes for a monthly payment of about $3,500 per month on a $400,000 LP640, with $143,000 in interest over the course of the loan.
The Lamborghini Murcielago may be getting old, but the raging bull still has some fight left in it. Some figure it just needs a little encouragement. Like JB Design.
The German tuning house has released a comprehensive tuning package for the LP-640 that leaves no stone unturned. The engine can be upgraded to 714- or 750-horsepower specifications. The shift paddles have been replaced with an F1-style rocker lever. An extensive carbon fiber aerodynamic package includes front and rear spoilers, rear diffuser, front air intake side skirts, and front and rear hoods. The wheels have been swapped out for 20-inch Schmidt Revolution alloys with steamroller Michelin rubber. The interior has been refinished in custom leather, Alcantara and carbon fiber trim. The stock exhaust has been replaced by an adjustable system. And the body has been re-sprayed in a custom paint that costs 280,000 euros per liter ($414k).
The cost of the modifications runs half a million euros (about $740k), but JB Design is looking to offload this particular demonstration car for 355,000 euros ($525k). Such a deal.
The presidents of Lamborghini and the University of Washington were both on hand recently as UW opened its Automobili Lamborghini Advanced Composite Structures Laboratory. As you might guess from that title, the Italian supercar maker is officially teaming up with the Washington school to work on advanced composites. The new Lambo Lab will get a healthy donation for equipment and student support from Lamborghini, and the university will provide research on composite structures and materials, something they know pretty well from working on projects like the 787 Dreamliner for Boeing.
The two organizations have actually been working together for the past two years. Lamborghini engineers have been using the UW lab for months at a time, and UW faculty have flown to Italy to teach classes in Bologna. Graduate students have even been serving internships at Lamborghini. Now that's an non-paying job we'd be willing to work.
After reading the full press release, however, we might not be so enthusiastic about raising our hands to volunteer in the lab. They have one of the best lightning-strike generators around, used to simulate lightning strikes at up to 100,000 amps. The lab also features a pneumatic crash sled and a drop tower to simulate damage from falling objects. We can just see it now, a special edition UW Lambo in Huskies' purple and gold.
The end of Murciélago is upon us. The steel-framed supercar from Sant'Agata has been on the market since 2001. Since then, Lamborghini has produced over 3,000 of them. But only 350 are LP670-4 SuperVeloce spec, and you can bet the other 2,650+ owners are jealous. However, while the SV's 670-horsepower engine remains the exclusive purview of the most extreme Lambo to date, one aftermarket firm has risen up to the challenge of giving existing "base" Murciélago owners the coveted look of the SuperVeloce.
You may remember Premier4509 for producing body kits for such exotics as the Lamborghini Gallardo, Bentley Continental GT and Aston Martin V8 Vantage. Japanese tuner fanboys and gamers may sooner recognize its parent company, VeilSide. But the Japanese outfit has now released a simple visual mod for the Murciélago to give it that SV look. Essentially all it is – for the time being at least – is a new bumper, blacked out on bottom and protruding like a cowcatcher. Coupled with a big rear wing and blacked-out quarter-panel intakes and mirrors, though, and it's a dead ringer SV.
Premier4509 says they've got an accompanying rear bumper in the works as well, and will only produce 300 examples of the body kit, so there's another couple thousand Murci owners still left out in the cold. And while it may not have the power advantage, even an "ordinary" Murciélago won't stick around long enough for anyone to notice.
There's a reason cable is kicking so much network butt these days. No, not Deadliest Catch. Well, okay, Deadliest Catch and shows like the National Geographic Channel's Ultimate Factories. What is Ultimate Factories you ask? It's a show where a camera crew runs around the world checking out some really cool factories, that's what. Think Budweiser, Ikea and the place where they build M1 tanks. However, the show spends most of its time (and rightly so) on cars.
For example, we chose the Lamborghini picture as the lead for this post because A) that's the (drool) LP670-4 SV B) the Lambo factory episode already aired last week. From all accounts, it was super fantastic good, especially if you're into raging bulls. Missed it? Do not fear, however, as reruns are currently (re)running. But even if you missed the Lamborghini episode, there are some upcoming shows that will certainly pique your interest.
This Thursday, October 8, is the Rolls-Royce factory where Nat Geo explores the Rolls-Royce Phantom, a car that takes 450 hours to build. On October 15 they visit the Oshawa plant where the new Chevrolet Camaro is built. Unlike the largely hand-built Phantom, it takes 734 robots (plus a human or two) just 18 hours to build a Camaro, with one coming off the line every minutes. Check this out: every Camaro produced so far has an owner.
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Here's all you need to know about the Lamborghini Reventon Roadster. You have a one in five-hundred million chance of being killed by a meteor, and a one in seven-hundred million chance of owning a Reventon Roadster. Any questions? And yeah, it costs around $1.6 million dollars and Lambo's making "less than 20," though we imagine if a couple more gazillionaires pony up €1.1 -- especially in cash andor gold doubloons -- they'd spit out a few more.
The Reventon Roadster looks even more like a tangram set pumped up on growth hormones than the hardtop. And while the crazy, hard-edged angularism might not be for everyone, it's hard to do much but smile when you're standing next to it. And really, besides the price, the only possible thing to complain about is the fact that you can't get the 661 hp Reventon Roadster with a manual: it's e-gear only. But seriously, you'd be better off worrying about getting killed five times in a row by a shark. No, really.
Lamborghini has just released official imagery and details of its next masterpiece, the Reventon Roadster, ahead of its oficial debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show. Like its hardtop predecessor, the Roadster features stealth fighter styling seemingly intended to scatter the radar beams of the local constabulary as you peal off your toupee. The 661-horsepower 6.5-liter V12 is also carried over from the coupe, which is enough to make the 62 mph sprint in a blistering 3.4 seconds. The 487 lb-ft of torque is transmitted to all four wheels via a viscous coupling as needed. Unfortunately, it has to pass through the e-gear semi-automatic 6-speed first – meaning sedate cruising around town unlikely to be a smooth affair.
The Reventon Roadster will again have a very limited production run befitting its €1.1 million price tag. Interestingly Lamborghini states that "less than 20" Roadsters will be built but leaves the final number open ended. Aside from the newfound abundance fresh air, the styling of the rear deck with its integrated wing carrying the third brake light is the only other visual difference of note.
Looks like it'll be an all-out supercar showdown next week at the Frankfurt Motor Show. In addition to the McLaren MP4-12C and the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG – not to mention the Ferrari 458 Italia – Lamborghini will reportedly be showing off the roadster version of its million-plus dollar Reventón.
Sporting the same stealth fighter-inspired angular bodywork as the standard Reventón that was unveiled two years ago at the same auto show, the new topless Lambo will reportedly make use of its all-wheel drive system to help the run to 60 in just 3.4 seconds. Top speed is expected to be well over 200 miles per hour, as you'd expect from an Italian supercar with a mid-mounted 650-horsepower V12 powerplant.
Wow. No, make that whoa. Why? More rumor and myth than car, this here is an honest to goodness Vector M12. And its yours for the taking. Unsure as to what you're about to bid on? Here's the explanation. To those of us that grew on on A-Team and Knight Rider, the Lamborghini Countach was the most positively exotic automobile ever. Forget about reality (and reliability, livability, etc.), our biggest hopes and dreams involved us in a black Countach with Paulina Porizkova and or Kathy Ireland riding shotgun. Not that we would have known what to do with either the car or the girl, but hey – we were twelve. But there was a dark side.
Vectors. They were like evil spirits. Something cooked up by the government in Area 51 using alien technology. And not just that regular old alien tech – we're talking the crazy stuff. You simply cannot imagine how impossibility AWESOME the Vector W2 was to a twelve-year-old mind. And you should have seen the jet fighter interior. It was like the space shuttle – the evil space shuttle. Then the W8 came out and it was still basically as nasty and mind bending. Then in the mid-Nineties, the M12 showed up, and well, the a little of the luster was lost.
We've heard some abso-fab stories – guns, cocaine, barricading one's self inside a building for 30 days – about what was going on at Vector in 1995. Suffice to say there was a very ugly battle between founder Jerry Wiegert and an Indonesian company called Megatech that hostilely took Vector over and canned Wiegert. As a result, the M12 never got the 1,200 hp twin-turbo 7.0-liter V8 (or the Wiegertian top speed of 250 mph) that was planned for the never released WX-3. The M12 did however get the WX-3's aesthetics, although in reality it was nothing more than a Lamborghini Diablo with a goofy looking fiberglass body, terrible three-spoke wheels, the lowest rent interior possibly imaginable – and it weighed 3,600 pounds.
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