Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera - Destined To Be A Superstar
By Michael Booth
Nov 15, 2007
RSports
The Gallardo Superleggera (which means, literally, Superlight) is Lamborghini’s toe-dip into this rarefied sphere. For a company with little or no serious racing tradition, its cheek is impressive, but the package is serious – it has removed the stereo, replaced it with a wobbly bit of carbon fibre and bunged another £22,000 on the price.
Though the exterior does all it can to help the Gallardo slip beneath the radar (as much as any Lamborghini can), the V10 engine, which clatters into raucous life behind my head, would rather give the game away if you tried to creep up on anything. You hear and feel every valve open, every drive shaft’s revolution. Heaven knows how it must sound from the outside: a chainsaw made from bits of a Kawasaki superbike? Chris Moyles breaking wind while wearing hot pants? Yet it is still a friendly car to potter around in at low speed. Things only start to go horribly wrong when you squeeze the accelerator – ever so gently – and the thing careers up the road like a spitwad from a rubber band. The brakes and steering are just as brutal. I soon learn that it is best just to let it calm down on its own, from a distance, as with a wild animal that has trodden on a wasp.
Whether things are more brutal than the standard Gallardo is rather like comparing going over Niagara Falls in a barrel to doing the Cresta Run in a Sainsbury’s carrier bag. Unless you do one straight after the other, the memory of the first will instantly be supplanted by the terror of the other. Certainly I wouldn’t advocate playing spot the difference on the roads of Britain, as many of the more excitable car writers are prone to doing.
