Lamborghini Gallardo LP 570-4 Superleggera: Pure automotive adrenaline (pictures)
Lamborghini made its Gallardo model even faster by replacing certain components with lightweight carbon fiber and upping the horsepower a little.
Wayne Cunningham
Wayne Cunningham reviews cars and writes about automotive technology for CNET's Roadshow. Prior to the automotive beat, he covered spyware, Web building technologies, and computer hardware. He began covering technology and the Web in 1994 as an editor of The Net magazine.
Making the Gallardo better sounds like a real challenge, but Lamborghini managed to shed 154 pounds and increase the horsepower a bit for the Superleggera.
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The angular front intakes give the Superleggera a stealth-fighter look.
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With a wheelbase of about 8 feet, 4 inches, the Superleggera is ready for quick cornering.
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Ceramic brakes are an expensive option, but they resist fade during lap after hot lap.
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The Superleggera's all-wheel drive biases 70 percent torque toward the rear.
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One of the carbon fiber components is this rear wing. The rear engine cover is also made of polycarbonate instead of glass for more weight reduction.
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This 5.2-liter direct-injection V-10 produces 570 horsepower and 393 pound-feet of torque. The bias toward more horsepower is an attribute of race cars.
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Two big pipes come out of each side at the rear of the car.
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The sport seats have carbon fiber shells, and the only adjustment is back and forth.
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Instead of a console-mounted shifter, the six-speed sequential gearbox requires the steering-column-mounted paddles for manual shifting.
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These buttons control the car's drive mode and toggle the transmission between manual and automatic.
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With its compact font, the speedometer is not easy to read. However, the tachometer matters more.
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The Leggera showed immensely fast acceleration, 3.4 seconds to 60 mph, according to Lamborghini.
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Cornering on this damp track easily led to slides in the Leggera.
