2008 Lamborghini Murcielago 2dr Cpe Lp640 on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Lamborghini close to joining premier LMDh class in IMSA

According to Racer magazine, Lamborghini hasn't officially said yes to joining the LMDh class in global endurance racing, but folks behind the scenes have green-lit the project and an announcement could come next month. Publicly, the brand's head of motorsport for the U.S. said work on a factory endurance program is "90% of the way there," the remainder to be sorted out by finding the right customer teams to lead the charge. Assuming this is what happens, Lamborghini will join Volkswagen Group siblings Audi and Porsche in the class, plus Acura and BMW. Cadillac hasn't made its intentions public, but observers expect the American luxury brand to come clean during this month's 24 Hours of Le Mans and show its LMDh challenger. Hyundai's apparently on the sidelines and leaning in, too. If all are counted, this would give the premier class for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship seven entries come 2024, and potentially add to the top-class LMH field in the FIA World Endurance Championship . As a refresher, there are two top-tier classes coming to global endurance racing. There's Le Mans Daytona hybrid (LMDh) that begins in IMSA next year, and Le Mans Hypercar (LMH) that started competing in the WEC on May 1 this year. LMDh cars use a spec chassis provided by one of four suppliers, Dallara, Ligier, Multimatic, or Oreca. LMDh teams can use any engine and electronics they want, but they will all fit a spec hybrid unit supplied by Bosch, a spec lithium-ion battery from Williams Engineering and a spec gearbox from Xtrac. Max horsepower will be limited to about 680. Audi and Porsche opted for a Multimatic chassis powered by a turbocharged V8, and Lamborghini is expected to follow its family members. Every team can create its own bodywork, the limit being a 4:1 ratio of drag to downforce and a single aero package for the year to keep costs down. The LMH class is based on roadgoing hypercars, a manufacturer required to sell 20 of the retail hypercars over a two-year period to qualify. Although output's capped to around 680 hp as with LMDh, manufacturers can develop their own engines, gearboxes and hybrid systems. Discrete bodywork is allowed with the same drag-to-downforce ratio limit. There will be balance-of-performance restrictions imposed on LMDh and LMH fields, and measures such as torque meters mounted on driveshafts to monitor overall output of each powertrain.

Lamborghini Huracan Superleggera spotted on 'Ring

Ever since Lamborghini introduced the Huracan to replace the Gallardo in 2014, we've been waiting for the Superleggera version to follow. This seems to be it. Spied testing at the Nurburgring is what appears to be a more hardcore version of Bologna's ten-cylinder supercar. It may be hard to tell from looking at it, because while the finished product will undoubtedly wear more aggressive aerodynamic appendages and fresh rolling stock, this prototype looks the same as the version we already know – with one exception. Around back, there's a big black box that looks as though it were lifted straight off a fighter jet. Now Lamborghini's been known to take its cues from military aircraft, but what we're seeing here is likely a disguise for the new exhaust system, mounted higher up the rear bumper. Our paparazzi on the ground in the Eifel Mountains tell us this prototype sounds meaner than your run-of-the-mill Huracan, which bodes well. The standard version packs a 5.2-liter naturally aspirated V10 good for 602 horsepower. The Super Trofeo racing version offers up 611, and we'd expect the Huracan Superleggera to pack at least that much, given the ten-horse gap between the preceding Gallardo and its Superleggera variants. Expect it also to come stripped out to help further optimize the power-to-weight ratio, but it will likely keep the all-wheel drive system in place. One way or another, we hope to find out before the year is out. Related Video: Featured Gallery Lamborghini Huracan Superleggera: Spy Shots View 10 Photos Image Credit: CarPix Spy Photos Lamborghini Supercars lamborghini huracan superleggera

We visit the Lamborghini Museum at company HQ in Sant'Agata

Last week, Lamborghini invited us to stop by its Sant'Agata Bolognese headquarters to have a look around the factory and pick up a few technical tidbits about its new Huracán LP 610-4. It won't surprise you to learn this, but Lambo's foyer is pretty rad.
Rather than front its offices and factory with a gift shop and a reception desk, Lamborghini puts its amazing heritage on full display by offering up the corporate museum as a first impression to visitors. We had coffee in the morning and lunch after the press conference in this space, with stunning Italian concept cars and production models serving as an impressive backdrop to it all. Not wanting to miss the opportunity to share the Lamborghini collection with exotic-car crazed Autoblog readers (you know who you are), we did our best to capture everything we saw in the gallery here.
With some variation, the museum's two floors are separated by vintage: older models downstairs and newer up. When you walk through the front door, you're flanked by two of the coolest Lamborghinis in the marque's impressive history: a 350 GT to the left and a perfectly green Countach LP 400 on the right. Perhaps our favorite car in the whole joint, the Countach's Bertone body is still almost impossible to believe. Up close, we're reminded how design-driven this car is; the seats are so far inboard from the scissor doors that it's difficult to imagine that engineers ever agreed that the shape was a feasible one for production or actual driving.