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Lamborghini Huracan Performante's active aero is the secret to its speed

The most revolutionary real technology at this year's Geneva Motor Show didn't look like it on the show stand. If you squint at the Lamborghini Huracan Performante, it merely looks like a Huracan with a big wing. Up close, you can see the fractal texture of the forged-composite aerodynamic add-ons, but that still doesn't tell you why this car is so special. Lamborghini calls it Aerodinamica Lamborghini Attiva (ALA), or active aerodynamics. This is one of the biggest keys to the Performante's claimed production-car record lap time at the Nurburgring Nordschleife of 6 minutes, 52.01 seconds. The Huracan Performante's number is not without controversy, but I personally care very little about the obsessive phallic-measuring contests that are 'Ring lap times. What's fascinating about the Performante is that, if the lap time is even close to legitimate, it shows that ALA is a major step forward in automotive performance. More than just lap times, the Huracan Performante is an example of why Lamborghini remains special in a world of democratized performance. We sat down to discuss this with Lamborghini's Research and Development Director, Maurizio Reggiani. And one last note on the lap time: Reggiani says with the same temperature and exclusive access to a dry track, "that in this average of speed we can repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat." In previous conversations, Reggiani said that the key difference in performance would come not from horsepower, but weight reduction. For Lamborghini, that means plenty of carbon fiber. But the newest Huracan is not a Superleggera, the old title for the hardcore variant. "Superleggera is too much an objective, a description. Performante is really the DNA of the car. In Italian, Performante means really the best performance," he said. Reggiani continues, "Nothing happened by chance. It's really a building-block approach where you say this can give this contribution, this can give that. Where can you improve something and what is needed to improve something?" That brought them to the active aerodynamics solution, which channels air to stall the front or rear aero elements of the car to change the downforce and drag. Reggiani says, "This can be achieved only with a system that is really light, [has] fast responsiveness. Based on this ...

Donald Trump's Lamborghini Diablo is up for sale

Back in Donald Trump's booming heyday, a car couldn't get much flashier, much more outlandish, much more... Trump than a Lamborghini Diablo. Turns out he actually owned one – a 1997 Lamborghini Diablo VT roadster, to be specific, like the one pictured above. And now it's up for sale. This VT roadster is one of just 200 or so that were made before the 1999 facelift. It featured the Viscous Traction (viscous-fluid coupling) all-wheel drive system that debuted on the Diablo VT, and the carbon-fiber roof panel could be removed and stowed over the engine cover. Short of the Ferrari 575M Superamerica with the Fioravanti-designed flip-top, we could hardly imagine a more fitting set of wheels for the mogul. Bear in mind that the Diablo was developed when the company was owned by Chrysler – which would not, of course, prove the last time Chrysler would be in bed with an Italian automaker. This one was built after the brand was sold to a Malaysian company (before it was absorbed into the Volkswagen Group). And in those days, Lamborghini was closely allied with US-based supercar manufacturer Vector Motors. The Diablo was about as American as an Italian supercar could be. Trump's is finished in French Racing Blue and appears to be in pristine condition. It's now been adorned with Trump stickers, seemingly well-documented as having belonged to Trump himself, and formerly registered in Palm Beach, FL. It's being sold by one Michael Digonis in New York via The Drive, who is asking $299,000 for it. That is a lot, but considering the celebrity provenance it could prove a sound investment – especially if Trump wins the Republican nomination and the general election next year. Related Video:

Lamborghini Huracan races Su-30 jet in Russia

We've seen it time and time again, but we never seem to get tired of it. We are referring, of course, to races between supercars and fighter jets. The time-honored tradition has seen a Lamborghini Reventón take on a Panavia Tornado, an SRT Viper line up alongside an F-16, even a Red Bull F1 car tackle an F/A-18 Hornet. But now it's time for the new Lamborghini Huracán to take its turn. And since this contest takes place in Russia, its rival is none other than the Sukhoi Su-30 Flanker-C, the two-seat version of the earlier Su-27 and one of the most advanced aircraft to come out of the Soviet Union.
Now there are, of course, many ways to set up a race between car and jet, but for this one, the organizers had the competitors line up on the runway, accelerate past a marker (at which point the jet is already in the air), turn around and return. We'll let you watch the video for yourself to see which won, but either way, there can be little question that the Su-30 and the latest Lamborghini are two of the most formidable performance machines ever devised.