2012 Lamborghini Aventador Lp 700-4 Coupe 2d on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Zagato rolls out second Lamborghini 5-95 in yellow

Unless you live in one of the supercar capitals of the world, seeing a Lamborghini on the street is a rare opportunity. Even the Gallardo, of which Lamborghini produced over 14,000 to go down as the most prolific Raging Bull in the marque's history, is still far from an everyday sight. But at the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este a few months ago – just shortly after the reveal of the new Huracan – Zagato presented an even more exotic version of the Gallardo. It's called the 5-95, and if features substantially overhauled coachwork that contemporizes the Raptor concept which the two Italian firms presented at the Geneva Motor Show in 1996. Rumors immediately began to circulate that Zagato would build a short run of these rebodied Gallardos, and here we have the evidence: the second 5-95, pictured at the Zagato factory in Milan. Wearing a more Lamborghini-like pearl yellow paintjob, this second of five 5-95s said to be in the pipeline looks more akin to the Cala concept of 1995 designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro at Italdesign. There's no telling who the customer is or how much he paid to get his hands on this rare bull, but you can bet it cost considerably more than a Gallardo or Huracan, even with the premiums customers are said to be paying for them these days.

Lamborghini goes from carbon fiber to carbon neutral [w/video]

Draw up a list in your mind of automakers striving to "save the environment," and you might be forgiven for not ranking Lamborghini very high on impressions alone. After all, it only makes supercars with double-digit cylinder counts, displacing over 5.0 liters, and producing in excess of 600 horsepower. Hardly what you'd characterize as "green" modes of transportation, then. And though it recently showed a hybrid sports car concept, it has opted next to build an SUV instead. However the Raging Bull marque is out to rehabilitate its image by changing the reality of its carbon footprint. It's just not about to do so by watering down the supercars for which it is known. "We are not here to please a single customer. We are here to pass this territory unharmed to the next generation." – Lamborghini CEO, Stephan Winkelmann This week the Italian automaker officially opened its new Trigeneration Plant – which is not, lest you think otherwise, an assembly facility spanning multiple eras of production. It's a new power plant, built on the site of the company's headquarters in Sant'Agata Bolognese, that will generate its electricity, heating, and cooling, all from the same source of natural gas. The plant has an installed (potential) capacity of 1.2 megawatts, and will (practically speaking) be capable of generating over 25,000 MWh every year. That'd be enough to power all the houses in Sant'Agata, the otherwise sleepy town which Lamborghini shares with about 7,000 residents. The clean-burning facility is estimated to cut out 820 tons of CO2 every year, and by 2017 is slated to run on biofuel to raise that figure to a claimed 5,600 tons per year. The question is, who cares? Sure, people buying EVs and free-range chickens want to be assured that their buying habits fit their environmental conscience, but does the average Lamborghini buyer really care if their new supercar came from an environmentally friendly factory? "If we are going to do the things only because of the importance first thing for the customer, we would not be here anymore," Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann told us during roundtable discussion at the opening of the Trigeneration Plant. "We are not here to please a single customer. We are here to pass this territory unharmed to the next generation." "It would be ridiculous if you would say we are going to save the world.

Creative minds build lightweight Lambos and Bugattis with cardboard and pedals

As manufacturers continue their quests to reduce the weight of their vehicles, they switch out heavy steel for lighter materials such as aluminum, carbon fiber, titanium, and sometimes even magnesium. But they've been ignoring a cheap alternative that is widely available: cardboard. Leave it to two visionaries from Vietnam to crack the code and build supercars and superbikes out of the versatile paper product. Vietnamese YouTube channel NHET TV, via CarScoops, might only have a year under its belt, but in that short amount of time, it has amassed more than 350,000 subscribers. What initially started out as a random collection of harmless pranks, trolls, and makeshift time-killers has blossomed into an entertaining channel of ultra-low-budget car and motorcycle builds.  The first video posted is a paper plane competition, but the second video shows the first appearance of a vehicle, a Ducati Panigale made out of cardboard and a bicycle. This isn't like Paper Mario with a two-dimensional silhouette, it's a close-enough three-dimensional replica. That project was admittedly pretty rough, but the work has only improved as the channel has matured.  Throughout the past year, NHET TV has stuck with high-performance transportation for inspiration. They've built projects that mimic a Lamborghini Sian, a Lamborghini Aventador SVJ, a Ferrari LaFerrari FXX K, a Bugatti Chiron, a BMW S 1000 RR, and a Yamaha YZF-R6, among others. Some of the builds, such as the Bugatti, go beyond the typical cardboard-body-on-bicycle-frame. As seen in the video below, the NHET TV built a tubular frame for the car using spare bike parts that they welded together. The Bug even has a custom steering column and steering wheel, though the high-quality model continues to use bike chains and pedals for power. The SVJ might be the most advanced vehicle, as it has a real engine for power and has custom reverse gearing. These guys are creating fun out of the limited resources they do have, and that's what right now is all about. Enjoy the videos below and watch more on the full NHET TV channel.