German Car Forum

Lamborghini Gallardo

The new 202mph Lamborghini is a beast with a muzzle firmly in place



Joseph Dunn Half a dozen choppers ferrying journalists and Lamborghini top brass flew in formation over the scorched badlands of Nevada like something out of Apocalypse Now. Only Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries was missing. This was not a reenactment of Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam classic but an expensively staged spectacular to mark the unveiling of the new Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4.

Could the launch of a tweaked version of an existing car possibly justify all this razzmatazz? Admittedly the LP5604 is more powerful than the standard Gallardo, quicker, lighter and more thrilling to drive. But the differences are subtle rather than stark. One suspects the theatricals were therefore more to do with Lamborghini’s carefully mapped out marketing strategy of launching a new car each year.

The LP5604 will replace the original Gallardo, which has been in production since 2003 and has been by far the most successful Lamborghini in history, shifting more than 7,000 units to date. Competition from Ferrari, in the form of the F430 Scuderia, and Porsche, not to mention the possibility of an Audi R8 V10 later in the year, means that Lambo has been forced to up the ante.

Close up, the LP5604 (the LP stands for “longitudinale posteriore”, the position and arrangement of the engine, the 560 refers to its metric power output and the 4 denotes permanent four-wheel drive), is a ferocious-looking machine. The stub nose drops viciously over the front wheels, while the front air vents have been enlarged to feed the larger engine. The lines along the flank remain sharp and the fat rear end, which houses the engine, is beefier than a Geordie doorman and packs just as big a punch. The new engine adds 39bhp to the standard car’s 513bhp and will hit 62mph from standing in 3.7sec, shaving 0.2sec off the sprint speed of its predecessor. It has a top speed of 202mph. To put the car’s sheer power and performance into some sort of perspective it is worth remembering that a normal family car will typically reach 60mph in about 12sec. The LP5604 will be travelling at 124mph in 11.8sec.

It is the sort of power that can get a driver into trouble, and within an hour at the speedway a Russian journalist had ploughed off the track, over a gravelled area, through a metal fence and into a brick wall. He survived but the car didn’t. This then is a beast with all the ferocious appeal of a Siegfried & Roy pet tiger - one moment of inattention and it can turn and bite.

Like the original Gallardo, the LP5604 has all the fixtures and fittings you would expect in a family saloon: sat nav, air-con and stereo. The black leather seats hold you in place well enough, but overall you are left feeling distinctly underwhelmed. The switchgear on the fascia is chunky and metallic and, for my tastes at least, a little too visible: who wants to be confronted by a conspicuous button to operate the electric windows in a £143,350 supercar? At the same time, parts of the rev counter and speedo can be blocked from view by the small steering wheel.

These are minor quibbles. The real test of the car is not inside the cabin but out on the road. Gun the engine in your garage and neighbours will think an F-15 has landed on your driveway. From inside the cockpit the noise is even more monumental: the engine is situated six inches from the back of your head.

Floor the throttle and the acceleration is savage. The new gearbox is a huge improvement on the original, and changes are fast (120 milliseconds) and seamless both in auto and in paddle-shift mode. On the track, where all you have to lose is your nerve, the ride is thrilling. But is the car quite the extreme, no-compromise racer that Lamborghini would have us believe?

After several tyre-squealing laps, the one question I was asking was how the Russian managed to lose control. The LP5604 is fast and fun but it is not uncontrollable. Time and again, just as the car began to wobble, the onboard electronics kicked in to pull it back from the edge. Feel the back end begin to slide and instantly power is redistributed to the wheels that need it and cut from those that don’t, to keep things on the straight and narrow. And good though the new box is - especially in “corsa” race mode – it is not as visceral and real as a genuine manual gearstick. Lamborghini says a manual box will be available but that most of its customers prefer the ease of the paddle shift.

And this is probably at the heart of the Gallardo LP5604: it is billed as edgy and extreme - as is the company that makes it – but it is not yet a full-blooded seat-of-your-pants supercar. Such a car needs to be coaxed and tamed to get the most out of it; the LP5604 is house-trained and flatters the driver.

When it goes on sale in June it will initially sit in the company’s product range alongside the standard Gallardo (which will eventually be phased out) and last year’s stripped-down version, the Superleggera. It will undoubtedly sell well and add to the growing allure of the brand, which has seen sales increase from 1,000 cars in 2003 to 2,406 in 2007. The company, renowned for its Italian flair but now under the ownership of Audi, is embarking on an ambitious German-style expansion plan. The odds are we will see a Spyder version of the LP5604 masquerading as a new car next year.

All this helps to keep the brand fresh and lively - as does its new merchandise line of clothes and key rings (can’t afford the car? Buy the sweatshirt instead) and its clever product placement (watch out for the Lambo in the new Batman film this summer) – and it will certainly have its arch rival Ferrari keeping a wary eye on its Italian neighbour. But whether this particular new car is quite as “extreme, uncompromising and Italian” as the slogan claims is a moot point.

Still, none of that really seems to matter when you are sitting in a traffic jam outside the neon casinos on the Las Vegas Strip. Here, where fortunes are made and lost on the turn of a card or the spin of the roulette wheel, you are not looking for visceral performance and the fear of stalling. Instead you are soaking up the looks and the camera flashes from passers-by thinking the same thing as you are: “If I get lucky tonight I’m gonna buy me one of those.”

Vital statistics

Model Lamborghini Gallardo LP5604
Engine type 5204cc, 10 cylinders
Power / Torque 552bhp @ 8000rpm / 398 lb ft @ 6500rpm
Transmission Six-speed clutchless manual
Fuel / CO2 13.6mpg (combined) / 351g/km
Performance 0-62mph: 3.7sec / top speed: 202mph
Road tax band Band G (£400 per year)
Price £143,350

Verdict Watch out, Ferrari
Rating
Date of release June

The opposition
Model Ferrari F430 Scuderia £172,605
For Superb performance and handling
Against Expensive, more common than a Lambo
Model Porsche 911 GT2 £131,070
For Brilliant to drive, relatively affordable
Against Lacks romance of an Italian supercar

http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol...cle3944788.ece