Dan Rubin's SuperfluousBanter

FAST: Lamborghini Murciélago

Intro­duc­tion

Before I go on with this first post let me quickly intro­duce you to this new
weekly sec­tion on SB enti­tled FAST. I have a pas­sion for cars, espe­cially fast
cars. Nev­er­the­less it’s not all about facts and fig­ures — I espe­cially
value the design of a car. FAST will present you with an exotic car every week (price and exclu­siv­ity are not the only cri­te­ria). The good thing: you can con­tact
me and make sug­ges­tions, or send in your own short review.

You can be sure to find the styl­ish Ital­ians, the clas­sic British, the big
Amer­i­cans, the pow­er­ful Ger­mans and the fast Japan­ese, but there’s also
those rare and unique vehi­cles from all over the world. FAST will mainly review
the design of the car, with a quick overview of the most impor­tant facts and
fig­ures related to per­for­mance. With­out fur­ther ado, let me intro­duce you to
our first can­di­date: the Lam­borgh­ini Murciélago.

Design

Lamborghini’s have not really been known for their ele­gant design, and
prob­a­bly rightly so. This rep­u­ta­tion goes way back but got even worse with the
Coun­tach, mainly pro­duced in the late 1970’s. The Mur­ciélago was intro­duced
in 2001 after the some­what suc­cess­ful Dia­blo. One char­ac­ter­is­tic design ele­ment
of Lam­borgh­ini are its — now clas­sic — swiv­el­ling doors, defin­i­tively not usable,
yet very cool for looks. The lines of the Mur­ciélago design are com­posed
of straight lines with plenty of edges, a nice effect in my opin­ion. A pecu­liar
ele­ment is the air flow entrance on either side of the car, near the rear (expanded
on the first pic­ture) which open above a cer­tain speed. Both use­ful for cool­ing
the engine and a lovely, although maybe some­what over­done, feature.

Lamborghini’s are not about ele­gance or details but about per­for­mance
and bold atti­tude. Just look at those pipes, don’t they just beg to roar?
The rear of the car is defin­i­tively odd at first sight, espe­cially the big
space below the tail lights. That notwith­stand­ing it’s a nice butt. Over­all
it just comes across as a mean beast, ready to rip some asphalt. It’s
obvi­ously not as ele­gant as some other Ital­ian rivals but it surely has spirit,
pas­sion and sheer aggres­sive­ness. Now let’s hope its par­ent com­pany, Audi,
will not Ger­man­ise Lam­borgh­ini too much in the future.

Designer: Luc Donckerwolcke

Facts & Figures

• Accel­er­a­tion: 0-100km/h (0-60mph) 3.6 sec.
• 1/4 Mile: 12 sec. (121mph)
• Speed: 330km/h (205mph)
• Engine: 6.2L, V12 60 degrees
• Power: 580 bhp at 7500 rpm
• Torque: 650 Nm at 5400 rpm

This item was posted by dhilhorst on Friday, April 9th, 2004.

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