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Lamborghini Miura owner sues garage over million-dollar car-b-que [w/video]

Remember about a year and a half ago when a rare, classic Lamborghini Miura SV went up in flames in London? Its owner sure does. And he's not willing to write it off, pointing fingers squarely at the Lamborghini dealership in London for causing the fire. It may seem like a difficult case to make, especially since the Miura was not in the dealership's possession when the fire erupted – the owner's son was driving it, but he was driving it home from the dealer where it had been brought in for service. According to the suit filed by the vehicle's owner, billionaire property agent Jon Hunt, the mechanics at the dealership owned by high-end automotive group H.R. Owen must have improperly fitted the spark plugs during the Miura's service. Lamborghini's official dealership should have known better, says Mr. Hunt. That's why Hunt is suing the dealership to the tune of GBP700,000, equivalent to over $1 million at today's rates, plus storage costs and "loss of enjoyment." The vehicle – one of only 764 made – was evaluated at GBP900,000, but Hunt's suit deducts the GBP200,000 it was worth as scrap. We've included footage of the fire below, but it's not for the weak of heart when it comes to watching an irreplaceable classic supercar burning to the ground. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

2016 Lamborghini Huracan LP 580-2 First Drive [w/video]

The most enjoyable – not necessarily the "best" or "fastest" – driving machines permit latitude with their exactitude, using ruthless precision to support a driver's personal style instead of smother it. Very few cars get it right. The Porsche 911 GT3 is one that does. Add the Lamborghini Huracan LP 580-2 – the new rear-wheel drive variant of the all-wheel drive Huracan LP 610-4 – to the short list. To get a sense of how the rear-drive car stacks up, let's revisit our impressions of the all-wheel version. We drove the LP 610-4 at Laguna Seca back in May for the brand's Intensivo driving school, and two idiosyncracies stood out. The first is that it ticked around corners like the second hand on a watch. That's great for an autocross, pivoting through cones like a Tron lightcycle. But on a circuit, you want the freedom to find your own best way to move the machine around the track, and the all-wheel-drive Huracan won't relent on its commitment to ultimate precision. You aim at grace but you get mechanics – a robot trying to follow your instructions for dancing the Tarantella. The second peculiarity was that it squirmed under heavy braking, coming down from triple-digit speeds into a hairpin like a bull shaking off a swarm of flies. The timed run from 0-62 miles per hour is just 0.2 seconds slower than the 610-4. The LP 580-2 is the prescription to cure both symptoms. As the name attests, output drops from 602 horsepower to 572 hp and torque is reduced from 413 pound-feet to 398 lb-ft, all of it sent to the rear wheels. The timed run from 0-62 miles per hour is just 0.2 seconds slower than the 610-4. No mere devaluation of potency, engineers remapped the 5.2-liter V10's power and torque delivery so it's different from the AWD version. Power delivery is further differentiated between the 580-2's manual and automatic shifting, and it feels more linear when you're working the paddles. You need a fetish for grilles to spot the variance between this car and the all-wheel drive version. Designers reworked the strakes on the lower front intake and removed the hexagonal mesh ornamentation, so you peer straight at radiators. The corners of a larger rear grille cut deeper into the bumper. The badge ahead of the rear wheels says, "LP 580-2." The standard 19-inch wheels are of a new design called "Kari." Those are the visual differences. The cabin is identical.

Rare early Lamborghini Countach sells for record $1.2 million

Lamborghini may have made headlines with the highly exclusive, $4.5-million Veneno and the even more expensive Veneno Roadster that followed, but when it comes to classics sold at auction, their prices seldom approach the kind of figures attained by rare classics made by arch-rival Ferrari. Early 350 GTs and rare Miuras (like the SV prototype Gooding sold a few years ago for a record $1.7 million) have been known to breach the seven-figure mark, but now the Countach is making its way into the big leagues as well.
Pictured here is a rather exceptional early example sold by Bonhams in Connecticut last week. This 1975 Lamborghini Countach LP400 "Periscopica" - so dubbed for the unique rearview mirror fitted to the first 150 examples made - has just over 10,000 miles on the odometer. With flawlessly retouched Blu Tahiti (read: French racing blue) paint and an immaculate deep tan leather interior, the Periscopica was the subject of feverish bidding before selling for $1.2 million to a buyer present at the auction, beating out a dozen or so telephone bidders.
The record price for a Countach trumps the previous record, also set by Bonhams at the Quail Lodge last August, where another '75 Periscopica sold for $836,000. The rising prices surely reflect the coming of age for the Countach, now nearly 40 years since its introduction - particularly for the generation that grew up idolizing it as the prototypical supercar. Scope it out in the artful gallery of 76 high-resolution images above and the details of the auction below.