BY AARON ROBINSON, PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIKE VALENTE
Lamborghini’s smiling senior test driver Valentino Balboni celebrates his 38th anniversary with the company the day before our arrival at the factory in Sant’Agata Bolognese on a quiet Saturday when the air is still, the traffic relatively light, and northern Italy seems to be down for a nap.Soon we are driving the 632-hp Lamborghini Murciélago LP640 behind Balboni, who is in his green Audi A4 diesel, and we can’t keep up. That’s because the narrow farm roads around the Lamborghini factory in Sant’Agata, Italy, have three lanes, two visible ones for routine traffic and one invisible lane just for Balboni. He darts into it frequently to pick off slowpokes, the obliging Fiats moving to the right with barely a flashed headlight of complaint. The 81.0-inch-wide LP640, in our abnormally cautious hands, snorts and burbles and falls steadily behind.
When the road clears, the new Murciélago, expected in U.S. showrooms by about the time you read this, at an estimated base price of $320,000, slips its leash with a mighty wail from its goggling mono-pipe. The road stripes blur as usual in a Lamborghini, but the vibe is different. The sluggish preamble, the trawling through lower, lesser-energized revs before the megaton explosion that was noted in our previous Murciélago test [C/D, July 2003], is gone.The windup to warp speed happens in one long, startlingly smooth blast of intoxicating bull power. Better still, the clutch engages with a light pedal and facile fluidity, the bulky all-wheel-drive powertrain as tractable and complacent as a Honda’s from stoplight to stoplight. The LP640 is still a supercar by an older definition, meaning that it pushes and pogos and feels generally gargantuan. But the Murciélago now serves horsepower every bit as civilized as that from its nearby competitors at Il Cavallino Modenese.
What happened was an engine redesign. The 572-hp, 6.2-liter dry-sump V-12 became a 6.5, going up a millimeter in bore size and 2.2mm in stroke. Everything from the crank mains up was redesigned to extract more power, flatten the delivery of the 487 pound-feet of torque, and improve emissions, starting with reshaped combustion chambers in new cylinder heads. Variable-valve-timing mechanisms on both sets of cams are now rotary-type with infinite variability; before, it was a two-step system. The multichamber intake plenum changed from a crossflow to a vertical downdraft, the air ramming through oval tubes straight into larger valves.
Lamborghini, which proudly makes its own engine computers, completely rewrote the software (no doubt with some input from parent company Audi) to accommodate the new hardware. The engineers say they also cut 60 pounds out of the engine compartment.You’ll know the LP640 by its larger oil-cooler scoop — there are almost 13 quarts on tap — on the driver’s-side rocker panel. A chin spoiler, a rear aerodynamic undertray, and a see-through engine cover are other cues to the LP640’s newness, as are redesigned taillamps and bumpers. Inside, the leather is crisscrossed by a modish diamond-pleat stitch pattern, and the dull instrument cluster finally gets — ta-dum! — a Lamborghini logo. In a few more years it may get chrome rings, too.
Ironically, for a car built in Italy, the Murciélago seems less suited to pinched Italian roads than any vehicle made — except for maybe Jay Leno’s tank rod. It’s a daunting challenge to make it look fast in pictures, so we asked Balboni, a man with more miles in Lamborghinis than anyone else alive, to steer for a few cornering shots. On the second run, the LP640 abruptly lost its footing in some sand, spun backward, and clonked a sign post. We stared, too shocked to speak, weep, or laugh at our rotten karma. Balboni got out and studied the mildly dimpled bumper and cracked taillight with an embarrassed frown. “Game over,” he said.Even after 38 years, Balboni’s game, like Lamborghini’s, seems far from over.
Vehicle type: mid-engine, 4-wheel-drive, 2-passenger, 2-door coupeEstimated base price: $320,000
Engine type: DOHC 48-valve V-12, aluminum block and heads, port fuel injection
Displacement: 396 cu in, 6496cc
Power (SAE net): 632 bhp @ 8000 rpm
Torque (SAE net): 487 lb-ft @ 6000 rpm
Transmissions: 6-speed manual, 6-speed manual with automated shifting and clutch
Wheelbase: 104.9 in
Length/width/height: 181.5/81.0/44.7 in
Curb weight: 3850 lb
Performance ratings (mfr’s est):
Zero to 62 mph: 3.4 sec
Top speed (drag limited): 211 mph
Projected fuel economy (C/D est):
EPA city driving: 9 mpg
EPA highway driving: 13 mpg
