[CARS] Outrunning the Italian police just got a little harder

rockHEAD · May 14, 2004

You will never outrun the Italian police again...

Lil Pun · May 14, 2004

DIZAMN!!!!

J DIDDY · May 14, 2004

i want to join the italian police so i can finally drive a Lambo

Falcons Talon · May 14, 2004

Yeah, but where do they put them after you catch'em?

Master Baiter · May 14, 2004

Originally posted by Falcons Talon
Yeah, but where do they put them after you catch'em?
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They tie them to the hood of their car with their tongue hanging out.

HOOP-T · May 14, 2004

That's just a fancy paint job on a Celica. Relax.

RocketsPimp · May 14, 2004

The cop that drives that is going to get alot of "favors".

synergy · May 14, 2004

Whats a Laborghini Gallardo? I've heard of a Lamborghini, but not this.

Falcons Talon · May 14, 2004

I think I've outrun something like that on Need for Speed 2. Just run 'em into a ditch and you're golden!

bamaslammer · May 14, 2004

Originally posted by synergy
Whats a Laborghini Gallardo? I've heard of a Lamborghini, but not this.
Click to expand...

It is the new smaller Lambo, designed to compete with the eight-cylinder Ferraris.

Lamborghini Gallardo
An Italian bull with German horse sense.
BY AARON ROBINSON
PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID DEWHURST
February 2004
Who really cares what side of the Alps the pieces come from as you strafe the freeways in a Lamborghini Gallardo? Certainly not the other commuters, their noses pancaked to the glass and their ears twitching with each 493-hp whoop from the V-10 wailing at your shoulder blades.

The world is on the lookout for modern miracles. Here’s one: Three decades after the founding tycoon bailed out, the smog and safety regulators checked in, and the cash kitty evaporated like spit on an iron skillet, Automobili Ferruccio Lamborghini lives. Not only that, it’s sticking the famous bolting bull on the Gallardo, a new supercar with everyday manners and a base price whittled down to $167,200 to hook the wallets of the still-working rich.

Thank the people’s-car people in Wolfsburg. They are not known for turning water into wine, but the suits at Volkswagen AG and its Audi subsidiary, which now owns Lamborghini, are getting one hell of a reputation for reversing the fortunes of dead (Bugatti), dying (Lamborghini), and sleepy (Bentley) car boutiques. A reminder of how thin it got, the thread Lamborghini once swung by is pictured with the new Gallardo—the 1975 Lamborghini Urraco represents the tractor emporium’s first whack at a cut-price coupe and the firm’s subsequent near demise in the 1970s (see sidebar).

To get Lamborghini to bleed black, Audi has leveraged the brains in its aluminum construction center in Neckarsulm, Germany, to supply the Gallardo’s alloy space frame. It has torn off big checks to upgrade the creaky Lamborghini facilities. It has swum the corporate parts bin and found reliable if somewhat ordinary-looking items for the Gallardo. They include a stereo, a climate-control system, and various dashboard switches and displays.

In so doing, Audi is helping Lamborghini tackle and—maybe, eventually—reverse the traditional paradigm at tweedy dealerships decorated with tropical ferns and oriental rugs. That is, the more one pays for his or her wedge of motorized lust, the more one can expect goony ergonomics, gas-chamber ventilation, slipshod construction, and frequent trips to the service department to correct egregious boners in design and development.

Judging from our days in the Gallardo, the old paradigm is indeed showing cracks.

The Gallardo’s body takes high-school geometry and makes it sizzle. No fleeing cats or sleeping females here; the Gallardo is all vectors, trapezoids, arcs, and angles both obtuse and acute, hunkered down on four huge 19-inch alloy spheres. The cab-forward roofline actually makes it look like two cars, the curvy one above overtaking the boxy one below.
Its doors swing almost perpendicular on normal horizontal hinges (Lamborghini reserves the scissors doors for buyers of the $281,100 Murciélago flagship). Stoops under the 45.9-inch-high roof are butt-first with a long drop to the seat, but gymnastic skills are not required. The steering column manually tilts and telescopes, and the seats motor rearward in generous tracks. That plus ample headroom means most drivers should comfortably fit in the Gallardo without resorting to tools.

The tight buckets greet you with a wafer-thin veneer of padding and all the sponginess of fresh asphalt. Despite an electric lumbar adjustment, they bulge outward near the base of the spine. After an hour, backs throbbed with fatigue. The four-cubic-foot compartment in the nose, split in two by a government-mandated (but quickly removed) divider so children won’t lock themselves in, is less a trunk than an oversized ashtray.

Chalk two for the old paradigm.

The beefy roof pillars arc downward to the body like two halves of a railroad bridge truss, leaving enough sheltered space on top of the dash to host your next bar mitzvah. Small quarter-windows forward of the doors help visibility around the thick pillars but lend a certain minivan ambience to the view forward. Aft blind spots have been reduced with the large rear glass and quarter-windows at your outboard shoulders.

Forget seeing anything of the Gallardo’s pavement-sniffing nose. It juts forward from the wheels enough to routinely dig itself into shallow driveway ramps and speed bumps with a heart-stopping sssscchrraaaaaaak! A front-axle jacking system like that found on the Murciélago would help.

Leather or squishy leatherette ornamented with thin lines of body-color topstitching covers most surfaces. The wheel is squared at the bottom of its arc, F1-style, to let thighs by. A row of slick metal toggles in the center console handle with class everything from headlights to hazard blinkers. No fighting over the cabin temp; the driver and the passenger receive separate climate controls.

The color LCD screen between the big tach and speedo shows trip info, open-door warnings, and any alarms of things gone kablooey. Overhead reside map lights and—holy Lexus in a Lamborghini!—a three-button HomeLink panel for opening garage doors and disabling house alarms. Mirrors fold inward on motorized stalks.

Chalk up about 20 for the New Way.

Even the starter motor on the Gallardo sounds fast. Turn the key, and the frenetic chugging ends in a sultry whoosh of combustion as the 303-cubic-inch DOHC 40-valve V-10 ignites. The engine settles quickly on a breathless 1000-rpm idle, ready for anything from a lazy trawl down a boulevard to a blast up to the 8100-rpm redline, the wide torque band pushing hard from rest and the intake tract sucking obscenely from the fender ducts.

The six-speed e-gear system we tested (the manual six-speed saves $10,000) is from Marelli, which also supplies Ferrari and Maserati. Paddles on the column ask for shifts while hydraulically controlled robotic fingers change the cogs in as little as 0.0012 second. A button left of the column selects reverse with a percussion of whines, clicks, and thunks from behind. The sharp and lovely bark of a computer-controlled throttle blip accompanies each downshift.

Computers can’t read minds. In full-auto mode, the transmission is always one step behind, downshifting only after you’ve stepped on it, upshifting just as you spot the hole through traffic. Smooth, jerk-free operation only happens when the driver takes control of the paddles. Even then, scooching up to a parking-lot log is white-knuckle stuff. The clutch fully engages, and the car lurches forward with each brush of the gas pedal. Push one too many times, and the Gallardo’s chin will taste concrete. One time the computer resolutely refused to give any gear, a problem resolved only by cycling the key. Push-button cars sometimes have push-button fixes.

For the fastest exit, Lamborghini recommends switching off the traction control, selecting first gear and the sport-shift mode for quicker changes, and stomping the gas. The computer lets the engine wind to about 2400 rpm then dumps the clutch. There’s a howling paroxysm in the back, then a slight chirp as the four tires receive their torque, then the scenery blurs.

Fingers quivering on the upshift paddle, we kissed 60 mph in just 4.1 seconds and burst through the quarter-mile in 12.4 seconds at 118 mph, riding the pointy end of a roostertail of desert dust sucked off the road by the Gallardo’s underbody. Lamborghini says the car will twist its needle to 192 mph. Our last report was at a stable, unflustered 191 mph before we lit into the 24-piston brake system (16 up front, eight in back). The calipers and the cross-drilled rotors packed within the four Pirelli slabs can shred 70 mph in 158 feet and do it repeatedly without fade.

In turns those same slabs help the Gallardo build dizzyingly big numbers. It pulls one full g on the skidpad and puddles blood in the body on public roads as its viscous center coupling and limited-slip rear diff direct the massive torque for hot-glue grip. Despite its 3560 pounds, the Gallardo doesn’t feel ponderous. The wheel pulses with contact data and cuts its path with quick precision and a light effort. Neutrality is the default mode, the nose obediently going where it’s told. You can cook a corner red-hot before the Gallardo’s balanced poise softens and it begins to plow, at which point the stability control gently taps a brake or two to put things back on track.
Impact energy dished up by the 30-series-rear and 35-series-front tires, plumped up to 44 psi—the recommended pressure for high-speed driving—mostly soaks into the robust skeleton. Lamborghini has lathered a slightly cushy frosting onto a rock-rigid sports-car suspension. Let the commuting begin.

The Gallardo has wow performance even in the Euro-bullet class. It accelerates to 60 only 0.3 second behind the V-12 Murciélago. The regular-grade Ferrari 360 Modena F1 sees nothing but fading taillights (the Stradale version is faster, but you’re more likely to grow yams on your back than get one of those). Yes, the Corvette Z06 is just about as fast and the $114,815 you save will make a tidy down payment on Jacko’s Neverland Ranch, but new Corvettes don’t pancake noses like new Lamborghinis.

That paradigm will never change.
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link
Check out these numbers!

C/D TEST RESULTS

ACCELERATION Seconds
Zero to 30 mph 1.8
40 mph 2.5
50 mph 3.3
60 mph 4.1
70 mph 5.2
80 mph 6.3
90 mph 7.8
100 mph 9.2
110 mph 10.7
120 mph 12.9
130 mph 15.0
140 mph 17.6
150 mph 21.4
160 mph 25.5
Street start, 5–60 mph 4.6
Top-gear acceleration, 30–50 mph 4.0
50–70 mph 6.2
Standing 1/4-mile 12.4 sec @ 118 mph
Top speed (drag limited) 191 mph

BRAKING
70–0 mph @ impending lockup 158 ft

HANDLING
Roadholding, 300-ft-dia skidpad 1.00 g
Understeer minimal

FUEL ECONOMY
EPA city driving 10 mpg
EPA highway driving 17 mpg
C/D-observed 12 mpg

INTERIOR SOUND LEVEL
Idle 59 dBA
Full-throttle acceleration 89 dBA
70-mph cruising 75 dBA

Lamborghini Gallardo
Vehicle type: mid-engine, 4-wheel-drive, 2-passenger, 2-door coupe

Price as tested: $177,200

Price and option breakdown: base Lamborghini Gallardo (includes $5400 gas-guzzler tax and $1300 freight), $167,200; e-gear transmission, $10,000

Major standard accessories: power windows, seats, and locks; remote locking; A/C; tilting and telescoping steering wheel; rear defroster

Sound system: Lamborghini AM/FM/cassette/CD changer, 6 speakers

ENGINE
Type V-10, aluminum block and heads
Bore x stroke 3.25 x 3.65 in, 82.5 x 92.8mm
Displacement 303 cu in, 4961cc
Compression ratio 11.0:1
Fuel-delivery system port injection
Valve gear chain-driven double overhead cams, 4 valves per cylinder, hydraulic lifters, variable intake- and exhaust-valve timing
Power (SAE net) 493 bhp @ 7800 rpm
Torque (SAE net) 376 lb-ft @ 4500 rpm
Redline 8100 rpm
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Rashmon · May 14, 2004

0-60 in 4.1

Sheesh...you'd be taking some g's

KaiSeR SoZe · May 14, 2004

Our police officers have to drive old ass Ford grand marquis

bamaslammer · May 14, 2004

It's amazing what they're doing with cars these days, stock! MB's are running around with 500-600 hp. The Viper has 500. There is that new Porsche that has around 500 or so. My aged Porsche 928 needs 12 psi of boost from a pair of good old KKK turbos to get that much. I'm telling you, these are the golden days of the performance car.

peleincubus · May 14, 2004

KKK turbos. what the hell is that?

Dr of Dunk · May 14, 2004

Originally posted by peleincubus
KKK turbos. what the hell is that?

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Unfortunate name for a maker of turbochargers.

Sane · May 15, 2004

Wow.

We've got BMW's, Mercedes', Land Cruisers and Nissan Patrols here. But a Lamborghini? Wow.

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[CARS] Outrunning the Italian police just got a little harder

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