2013 Ford Mustang Gt Coupe 2-door 5.0l on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Lamborghini rules out sub-Huracan sports car

There is a kind-of-new segment emerging in the sports car market: an area in between vehicles like the Porsche 911 Carrera and supercars like the Ferrari 488 GTB or Lamborghini Huracan. It's a space recently defined by the Audi R8 and Porsche 911 Turbo, with some newcomers rushing in. McLaren joined in with the 570S and Ferrari is tipped to be looking at a new six-cylinder Dino revival. But Lamborghini isn't in any rush participate. At least not for now, and not with a completely new model. Speaking with Car and Driver during the New York Auto Show, Lamborghini chief Stephan Winkelmann said you can "never say never" about anything in this business, but that the prospect a more accessible sports car underneath the Huracan is not currently on the table. Winkelmann pointed towards pricing and volume considerations, but we imagine there's more to it than that. The Volkswagen Group of which Lamborghini is part already tackles that segment with the aforementioned Audi R8 and Porsche 911 Turbo, and while the German giant has never shied away from flooding a market segment with overlap from its various divisions, the R8 and the Huracan are already closely related. The Lambo chief did hint that decontented versions of the Huracan could fit the bill, though. Sant'Agata's ten-cylinder model currently starts at $237,250, but the previous Gallardo started at $191,900 before it was phased out. That was for the less powerful, rear-drive LP 550-2, which could hint at a successor under the Huracan's umbrella. And that's just $7k more than McLaren will be asking for the 570S. Aside from the prospect of a cheaper Lambo, Winkelmann also told C/D that the Asterion hybrid concept was strictly a technological demonstrator with no chances of production, that the Urus crossover project is still on the table, and that the supercar market isn't growing as fast as you might think. Related Video:

Ferdinand Piech (1937-2019): The man who made VW global

Towering among his peers, a giant of the auto industry died Sunday night in Rosenheim/Upper Bavaria, Germany. Ferdinand Piech, a grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, who conceived the original Volkswagen in the 1930s, was the most polarizing automotive executive of our times. And one who brought automotive technology further than anyone else. Ferdinand Porsche had a son, Ferdinand (called "Ferry"), and a daughter, Louise, who married the Viennese lawyer Anton Piech. They gave birth to Ferdinand Piech, and his proximity to two Alfa Romeo sports cars — Porsche had done some work for the Italians — and the "Berlin-Rome-Berlin" race car, developed by Porsche himself, gave birth to Piech's interest in cars. After his teachers in Salzburg told his mother he was "too stupid" to attend school there, Piech, who was open about his dyslexia, was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland. He subsequently moved on to Porsche, where he fixed issues with the 904 race car and did major work on the 911. But his greatest project was the Le Mans-winning 917 race car, developed at breathtaking financial cost. It annihilated the competition, but the family had had enough: Amid growing tension among the four cousins working at Porsche and Piech's uncle Ferry, the family decided to pull every family member, except for Ferry, out of their management positions. Piech started his own consultancy business, where he designed the famous five-cylinder diesel for Mercedes-Benz, but quickly moved on to Audi, first as an engineer and then as CEO, where he set out to transform the dull brand into a technology leader. Piech killed the Wankel engine and hammered out a number of ambitious and sophisticated technologies. Among them: The five-cylinder gasoline engine; Quattro all-wheel drive and Audi's fantastic rally successes; and turbocharging, developed with Fritz Indra, whom Piech recruited from Alpina. The Audi 100/200/5000 became the world's fastest production sedan, thanks to their superior aerodynamics. Piech also launched zinc-coated bodies for longevity — and gave diesel technology a decisive boost with the advent of the fast and ultra-efficient TDI engines. Less known: Piech also decided to put larger gas tanks into cars. Customers loved it. Piech's first-generation Audi V8 was met with derision by competitors; it was too obviously based on the 200/5000.

Lamborghini may offer rear-drive Huracan

Lamborghini may not offer a manual-transmission option on the new Huracán - so few customers were asking for it on the preceding Gallardo as it was - but don't think that it won't pursue ever more hardcore variants. And that will reportedly include a rear-drive version.
Speaking with journalists at the Pebble Beach unveiling of the new Huracán Super Trofeo, Lamborghini CEO Stefan Winkelmann is reported to have said, "We did it with the Gallardo so it might be an option. We are a four-wheel-drive super-sports car [manufacturer] but why should we not do a rear-drive option?"
The rear-drive Huracán would naturally shed a few pounds off the all-wheel-drive version's curb weight, but the question is just how much. There is said to have only been so much of the AWD system that Sant'Agata was able to strip out of the Gallardo to make the rear-drive Balboni edition after the fact, but if the Huracán was engineered from the get-go for both drivetrains, the rear-drive version could prove that much more thrilling to drive.