Cars - Lamborghini Gallardo

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	Cars - Lamborghini Gallardo

The Lamborghini Gallardo is the Italian supercar maker Lamborghini's "entry-level" car, sitting beneath the Murciélago. 3,000 Gallardos were built in just two years, making it the company's most-produced model to date. The second-place Diablo took a decade to sell 2,903 examples.

Overview

The Gallardo was designed as a competitor to Ferrari's 360 Modena, and now competes with its replacement, the F430. The car is named after a famous breed of fighting bull and is pronounced roughly "gah-yard-o". Gallardo is also Spanish for the word gallant. Although performance is lower than the Murcielago, it is still very high, and the Gallardo has much better rearward visibility and, according to reviewers, is more maneuverable as well as more tractable in low-speed traffic, making the Gallardo a much more practical car to drive. It is also much more practical to use in bad weather than other supercars, thanks to rear-biased all-wheel drive. Although corporate owner Audi is renowned for its extremely good Quattro AWD system, Lamborghini uses a system of its own.

However, to the disappointment of many enthusiasts, Lamborghini did not fit Butterfly doors as on the Murcielago, and many owners have fit their own, vertical-opening doors. Lamborghini chose to keep the signature scissor doors exclusive to the V12 models, as it has done since the Countach when they were first introduced.

At current U.S. prices, a Gallardo costs about $165,000.

The Gallardo uses a V10 engine based on Audi's old straight-5 design. This engine was split again to become the straight-5 engine found in the new Volkswagen Jetta. The 5.0-liter engine is a current Audi 4.2-liter V8 (featured in Audi's S4, A6, A8, and upcoming Q7 models) with two extra cylinders added and a slightly smaller bore diameter.

The Gallardo offers two choices of transmissions, a conventional six-speed manual transmission, and an advanced six-speed electro-hydraulically controlled auto-clutch manual, or, as Lamborghini abbreviates it to, "E-gear". The latter allows the driver to make shifts much faster than an automatic transmission would, with the control that a manual offers. The driver shifts up and down via paddles behind the steering wheel, and does not need to manually actuate the clutch.

Audi, Lamborghini's current owner, plans to offer its own sports car based on the Gallardo architecture, the Audi R8. It would use a V8 in place of the Gallardo's V10 to avoid competing directly with the sister car.

Gallardo Spyder

The production spyder model of the Gallardo was unveiled at the Los Angeles Auto Show in January, 2006. It is considered by the company to be an entirely new model, with 520 hp (388 kW) and a lower-ratio six-speed transmission. The soft top is fully retractable.

Gallardo SE

In late 2005, the Gallardo SE (for Special Edition) was introduced. The SE is distinguished from the regular Gallardo externally by having a black roofed two tone color scheme as well as specially designed "Callisto" rims shod with Pirelli tires, the interior of the SE also follows the two tone scheme. Mechanically, the SE addresses many of the criticisms of the original Gallardo; the steering is quicker and more responsive, the gearbox gear ratios have been adjusted to better suit the V10, and the E-gear now has a "thrust mode" to optimize acceleration, and its power has been increased to 520 hp (388 kW). The SE has a higher top speed of 315km/h, (196mph), and it accelerates to 100 km/h in 4.0 seconds. Only 250 units of the Gallardo SE will be produced. However, all the mechanical upgrades of the SE will be included in all Gallardos after 2006 (excluding the two-tone bodywork).

Specifications

Trivia

Gallardo is a breed of Spanish fighting bull. Nearly all of Lamborghini's cars are named after bulls.
Owner of a Gallardo, Bam Margera, claims to own the only Gallardo in the world with a sunroof after he (and Billy Idol) cut a rough rectangle out of the roof with a jigsaw. This caused a huge uproar amoung automotive enthuisats.
The Gallardo has been featured several times in various seasons of NBC's reality series The Apprentice.
The Gallardo will be seen in the upcoming Mission: Impossible III film.
The Gallardo was spoofed on an episode of The Simpsons (The Italian Bob), referred to as the "Lamborgotti Fasterossa".
The Gallardo can be driven in the Electronic Arts computer game Need for Speed: Most Wanted

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