2010 Lamborghini Gallardo Lp560-4 Spyder Convertible 2-door 5.2l on 2040-cars

Auto blog

VW makes $23K on every Porsche sold, more than Bentley or Lamborghini

It's a good time to be in the luxury car business. In Volkswagen Group's financial report for the 2013 fiscal year, it is revealed that that Porsche enjoyed an operating margin of 18 percent. That means the Stuttgart brand made on average about $23,200 per car sold, according to BusinessWeek. Bentley wasn't far behind, and Audi (which was combined with Lamborghini) posted a 10.1 percent margin. This compares to only around 2.9 percent for the Volkswagen brand.
"Luxury brands are on fire," said Dave Sullivan, an industry analyst at AutoPacific. He said that the average profit margin is between six and eight percent. Brands like Porsche and Bentley have the benefit of competing in rarefied markets. Buyers looking at one their vehicles have fewer models to shop against and don't care as much about price. They can also charge more for options, which further boosts income, according to BusinessWeek.
In a way, we should be more impressed by the continued success from Audi. Its models generally have direct competitors in every segment from the other premium automakers. Plus, their buyers aren't the captains of industry who are shopping for a Bentley. Still, the Four Rings is leading rivals in sales so far this year.

These were our favorite cars of 2022

Favorite cars is different than best cars. The idea of "best" can speak to value and overall competitiveness in a given vehicle segment. There's lots of objectivity involved and to do a "best" list right, one really must be very thorough and as scientific as possible. This is not that list. This is about our favorites, so objectivity be damned. If we liked a Challenger Hellcat because it made loud noises or a Honda Odyssey because it made for a particularly special family vacation, fair game. These were the cars that most spoke to our collection of editors and the ones that stayed in our minds and hung in our hearts long after they left our driveway. — Senior Editor James Riswick 2022 GMC Hummer EV Senior Editor, Green, John Beltz Snyder: I didn't particularly expect to like the new Hummer. I wasn't a fan of the Hummer H2 or H3, so I wasn't automatically enthusiastic about this electric reboot. Fast EVs aren't hard to come by — and, in fact, may be too easy to come by — so its performance specs weren't enough to win me over. Despite videos to the contrary, pickups aren't my favorite vehicular format. And its excessive size and weight turned me off ... until I finally got behind the wheel.  This thing is wildly entertaining to drive. Watts to Freedom launch control is a neat party trick, sure, but the novelty wears off quickly. The novelty of Crab Walk, however, has staying power. The rear-wheel steering makes this behemoth feel much smaller than it is — the maneuverability is incredible, and useful. The air suspension provides tons of clearance, including a ridiculously high-riding Extract mode. I can't wait for lesser versions of the Hummer to make their way to market. Give me less power (for less money), but keep the off-road tricks onboard, and I'll be a happy camper. Senior Editor, Consumer, Jeremy Korzeniewski: If I could afford to put one of these in my driveway, I would. Sadly, I can't, so I won't (What's that, Janet? I got the lyric wrong?). Still, I love the dumb thing. Thankfully, I have another choice down below. 2022 Porsche 911 GT3 Associate Editor Byron Hurd: Yeah, duh, Porsches are good. But there's good, and then there's GT3. This is the feeling every performance-oriented RWD tuner is trying to replicate. This is hard, precise, surgical and immensely satisfying. To begin to explore this car on a public road is by itself an admission that you believe yourself to be above the rules as they apply to normal drivers.

2015 Lamborghini Huracan LP 620-2 Super Trofeo [w/video]

Pull a run-of-the-mill Lamborghini Huracan LP 610-4 off the Sant'Agata Bolognese assembly line, and you'll get a fearsome piece of machinery that can hit 60 miles per hour in as little as 2.5 seconds and reach a terminal velocity in excess of 200 mph. The stats are stunning, but the boys at Lamborghini want more – not just numerically, but more in the greater glory of an all-encompassing, brand-aggrandizing, Ferrari kind of way. Why compare the Raging Bull with the Prancing Horse in particular? Surely, any self-respecting gearhead knows that the two brands exude subtly different swaggers. But the gap goes well beyond the superficial: while Ferrari (not to mention competitors like McLaren and Porsche) has nurtured an enviable racing history from LeMans to Monaco, Lamborghini's history on the track is a bit scarcer. The Volkswagen Group recently thrust Bentley back into competition to reinvigorate the brand's past glories, and the next VW brand to win the racing lottery is Lamborghini. Behold: the Lamborghini Huracan LP 620-2 Super Trofeo. Born To Race While Lamborghini claims a long history of wedge-shaped exotica, the Huracan was the first production car in the brand's half-century history to be engineered from scratch with the racetrack in mind. As such, the street car's screaming, naturally-aspirated V10 and 3,135-pound curb weight are mere starting points for Dallara Automobili, the firm tasked with developing the racecar in conjunction with Lamborghini. For starters, the standard Huracan is alleviated of many of its pedestrian trappings like airbags, sound systems, and swanky power-operated leather seats. By jettisoning the unnecessary, the Super Trofeo manages to slim down nearly 330 pounds, to around 2,800 pounds. Don't let the mere 10 (metric) horsepower jump fool you: the LP 620-2's Motec engine management system not only adds data acquisition capabilities (which work alongside an eight-setting traction control system and a 12-setting Bosch ABS setup), it completely changes the power delivery characteristics of that 5.2-liter V10. More on that later. A good chunk of that weight loss comes from the removal of the entire front end of the drivetrain, which transforms this Huracan from an all-wheel-drive animal to a rear-drive beast.