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A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]

Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.

Listen to the Lamborghini Hurac'an fire up

Lamborghini just revealed all the juicy details about its 2015 Huracán this morning, but apparently Autobild was on hand for a photo shoot of the car, and shot this quick video of the new Lambo starting up. It's not a rev-happy video, but we're still happy a camera was on hand to capture the raucous exhaust note as the 610-horsepower V10 roared to life.
The note emanating from the Huracán's quad exhaust outlets doesn't sound quite as high-strung as an Aventador or Reventón, but it's definitely a throatier, more menacing sound than the Gallardo it was designed to replace. While the video posted below is a good tease of what the car sounds like in real life, we can't wait to hear this engine hitting its peak horsepower at 8,250 rpm.

Lamborghini Aventador SV production limited to 600 units

Six hundred. That's how many examples of the Aventador LP 750-4 Superveloce Lamborghini will make. Not per year, but in total. So if you want one, you'd better act fast. The production figure was announced at the new SV's Chinese debut at the Shanghai Motor Show this week, following the supercar's worldwide debut at the Geneva Motor Show and its subsequent North American premier at Amelia Island. That's where the Raging Bull marque announced the Superveloce's price at $485,900 before tax and destination charges, or $493,095 all-in. For all that scratch, you get a supercar with a good old-fashioned, naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12 driving 740 horsepower to all four wheels for a 0-62 time of 2.8 seconds and a top speed of 217 miles per hour. That would make the SV one of the fastest cars on the road (if it were legal to drive that fast) this side of a hypercar costing twice or more what Lambo's asking for the Aventador SV. Now if that production run seems rather small to you, bear in mind that Sant'Agata only produced 2,530 vehicles last year, and that was an all-time record for the marque. Go back a more than a decade and Lambo wasn't even coming close to completing that many vehicles in a calendar year altogether. LAMBORGHINI PRESENTS THE NEW AVENTADOR LP 750-4 SUPERVELOCE AT AUTO SHANGHAI 2015 Shanghai, 20, April, 2015 – At the 16th Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition, Automobili Lamborghini presents the Aventador LP 750-4 Superveloce. Making its Asian debut, the AVENTADOR LP 750-4 SUPERVELOCE is the most sports-oriented, fastest and most emotional series model ever produced by Lamborghini, therefore giving a precise demonstration of Lamborghini's brand values – Visionary, Cutting-edge, Pure. The car is limited to 600 units worldwide. The HURACAN LP 610-4, the successor to the iconic Gallardo, enters the same stage in Hall 6.1. Redefining the benchmark for luxury super sports cars in this segment, the Huracan has not only sustained the successful market performance of its predecessor, but is also destined to create a new legend. The AVENTADOR LP 700-4 PIRELLI EDITION, which celebrates the long and ongoing collaboration between the Raging Bull and the prestigious Italian tire manufacturer, is also introduced for the first time to China at this year's Auto Shanghai. The year 2015 also marks Lamborghini's 10-year anniversary of entering into the China Market, which remains one of the most important markets for Lamborghini worldwide.