Ten years in the making and Ray Leathern finally steps behind the wheel of not one, but three, Italian fighting bulls. This, ladies and gentlemen, is Christmas, Easter and New Year’s Eve all rolled into one – Lamborghini style.
“Steady on lad,” I verbalise to myself. I and two other journalists have only just arrived at our accommodation in Mpumalanga and I’m already clamouring around the three Lamborghini Gallardos like a meth addict to a glittery, crystal chandelier. The other two are trying to play it cool, like two dopes trying not to stare at a supermodel lost in a grocery store.
“Pah,” I don’t have time for that prescript, I’m going to be all over these cars like white-on-rice for every single second they are available to me. There’s a very good reason for this, you see. My brain has had ten years’ worth of synapse-manipulation to the sight and sound of the Lamborghini Gallardo. Videos, YouTube, books, magazine articles, I know so much about this car I’ve started to forget things. Now I get to drive not one, but three of them. I rub my Saint Christopher, the patron saint of travel, one more time for good luck.
Assembled in the parking lot are a Gallardo LP560-4 Spyder, a Gallardo LP560-4 Coupé with a Signature Series body kit on it and finally a top-dog Gallardo LP570-4 Performante Spyder. The latter is effectively the Spyder equivalent of the LP570-4 Superleggera Coupé. Got it? Good.
What’s clear is that these cars are for people with extraordinary taste. As expensive, aggressive and old as these cars may be now, they are nevertheless Italian and crotch-tinglingly exotic. What does the script hold in store for my story? Am I going to love them just as much as I’d imagined I would, or will I realise I’ve been fruitlessly chasing a dream and they’re over-hyped and over the hill? I genuinely have no idea.
Regardless of the outcome, what I do notice straight-off-the-bat as they sit in the hotel car park, is the rakish roofline (probably no higher than hip height when you stand next to it), the stubby front end with its highbrow headlights and the sporty skirting on the Signature Series and Performante. What a couple of lookers this trio are. It’s like looking at Heidi, Claudia and that other one. The standard car even looks a little bit elegant and understated against the aggression of its winged and ducted companions. I wouldn’t kick her out into a thunderstorm.
From the rear end, the Performante has a fixed carbon-fibre wing that is just pure perfection to a bloke like me with petrol thrumming through his veins. Peering out from underneath the rear diffuser is the bottom of the rear-mounted gearbox. This again, is suggestive, sexy, and a bit like catching sight of a hottie’s G-string. It makes you feel all naughty and racy inside.
When you climb down into the cabin you’re immediately taken by the lowness of the dashboard and the car as a whole. A six-foot-plus bloke like me needs to almost crane down to look out below the subterranean roofline. It feels athletic though, like you’re virtually lying flat on your back with the stretched lines of the controls and the front of the car coming at you at speed.
This is all part of that exotic ‘sizzle’ before you’ve even set off for a journey. The interior is a substantial mix of suede leather, carbon-fibre and it has to be said, Audi switch gear; from the climate control to the Sat-Nav controls, it’s unmistakable. All the vehicles were fitted with Lamborghini’s E-Gear, two-peddle transmission, so two paddles are found sprouting out from behind the steering wheel, as if begging for your full attention. All in good time, sir, let me just take this all in.
There is massive reach and height adjustment on the steering wheel to make the driver of a Gallardo feel like a Nascar-veteran with the wheel able to reach out just inches from your chest. You can settle into an unapologetically racy grip with this car. The handbrake is massive as well, taking up almost all the space afforded above the transmission tunnel. It has to be He-Man’s car this, it just has to be.
Then you fire up the 5.2-litre V10, with a vicious, raucous blast behind you to accompany the momentous occasion, before it settles down into a deep, idling burble. You engage first gear with the right-hand paddle and you ease open the throttle carefully. You can sense this is a car with a very, very big engine straight away, you also feel the mechanical losses when moving around at low speed from the viscous, centre-coupling, that distributes power to all four wheels.
You hear the sounds of a machine clunking, melding together and heating up for the tasks that lie ahead. It’s a proper, blood-and-guts, mechanical machine this car, not a self-involved bag of electronic alchemy like you get from those other Italians. The gearbox takes some getting used to in the way it is meant to be used with the paddles and not with the sensible ‘auto’ mode as its default. Auto mode is kind-of a last resort for in case both your arms have been cut-off in a chainsaw accident.
That’s how it feels when entrusted with swopping cogs as well, jerky and slow. This incidentally is also exactly what the Lamborghini’s V10 engine sounds like; like the Mpumalanga Chainsaw Massacre. Finally, outside the confines of Mpumalanga’s sleepy towns we can finally open the V10 beast up a bit. With a few flicks down on the left-hand paddle the revs rise above 4 000 r/min and the exhaust noise goes bonkers. It really is a switch, on or off at 4 000 r/min. Nothing, and then… chainsaw massacre soundtrack.
The gearbox is much better at speed. Really, it is. It even shifts up quite convincingly on its own when it touches the red-line. The steering feel is heavy and absolutely confidence inspiring. The drive, the atmosphere, as you thunder along in a Lamborghini Gallardo is also intoxicating because in the back of your mind you know there isn’t a wall of electronics flattering you, making you feel like Lewis Hamilton.
When you accelerate, 30% of the power is sent to the front, the rest to the back and you’re left to your own devices from there. The Gallardo has great natural levels of grip and great body rigidity to keep you dancing hard and true over road imperfections. It’s perhaps a little bit on the soft side as far as spring rates are concerned, so there is actually slightly more roll in the fast corners than you might’ve expected, but it is also surprisingly supple and comfortable as a result, with the suspension compliance becoming more comfortable the faster you go too.
The massive front and 295-wide rear section tyres are also surprisingly good at floating over the occasional Mpumalanga pothole; of which there are several these days. The tyres are so wide they don’t ever seem to actually go in the holes. Bonus!
The best part of the Lamborghini Gallardo is how it looks. No, it’s how it sounds. No, it’s of course the power it produces. The LP560-4 pumps out 412 kW and 540 Nm of torque and the LP570-4 Performante makes a bit more power at 419 kW and the same amount of torque. That puts the 0 – 100 km/h sprint down to less than 4-seconds for all of them, before you top out at a speed in excess of 320 km/h.
With my expectations barely in check, the days driving seemed to come and go in the blink of an eye. I didn’t know what I would make of finally driving my hero, the Lamborghini Gallardo, after ten years of it being in production. Lamborghini should be building a replacement to the Gallardo by now, but they aren’t, so we must evaluate this car against its current supercar competitors.
What I can confirm for you is the following: Yes, the gearbox is less than perfect. In town its rubbish, but on the move you can work with it. For its tardiness, in the E-Gear’s defence, it is at least emotive to use; unlike so many modern, faster, nerdy double-clutch alternatives. And no, aside from some buttons it does not just feel like a big, expensive Audi. Yes, other Italian and British supercars are certainly faster and more hi-tech nowadays, but they don’t put as big a smile on your face.
Finally, yes, none of drawbacks matter one iota when you put your foot down and you make that V10 bellow like a wild animal through the forests of Mpumalanga. I should never have worried, the script was never in doubt, not even for a second. It’s a bloody Lamborghini for goodness sake! It is every inch the car it was always going to be and I haven’t been able to shake that V10 soundtrack from head ever since.
| Pricing (subject to R.o.E) | |
| Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 E-Gear | R3 300 000 |
| Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 Spyder E-Gear | R3 650 000 |
| Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Performante E-Gear | R4 100 000 |
