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Ferdinand Piech (1937-2019): The man who made VW global

Towering among his peers, a giant of the auto industry died Sunday night in Rosenheim/Upper Bavaria, Germany. Ferdinand Piech, a grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, who conceived the original Volkswagen in the 1930s, was the most polarizing automotive executive of our times. And one who brought automotive technology further than anyone else. Ferdinand Porsche had a son, Ferdinand (called "Ferry"), and a daughter, Louise, who married the Viennese lawyer Anton Piech. They gave birth to Ferdinand Piech, and his proximity to two Alfa Romeo sports cars — Porsche had done some work for the Italians — and the "Berlin-Rome-Berlin" race car, developed by Porsche himself, gave birth to Piech's interest in cars. After his teachers in Salzburg told his mother he was "too stupid" to attend school there, Piech, who was open about his dyslexia, was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland. He subsequently moved on to Porsche, where he fixed issues with the 904 race car and did major work on the 911. But his greatest project was the Le Mans-winning 917 race car, developed at breathtaking financial cost. It annihilated the competition, but the family had had enough: Amid growing tension among the four cousins working at Porsche and Piech's uncle Ferry, the family decided to pull every family member, except for Ferry, out of their management positions. Piech started his own consultancy business, where he designed the famous five-cylinder diesel for Mercedes-Benz, but quickly moved on to Audi, first as an engineer and then as CEO, where he set out to transform the dull brand into a technology leader. Piech killed the Wankel engine and hammered out a number of ambitious and sophisticated technologies. Among them: The five-cylinder gasoline engine; Quattro all-wheel drive and Audi's fantastic rally successes; and turbocharging, developed with Fritz Indra, whom Piech recruited from Alpina. The Audi 100/200/5000 became the world's fastest production sedan, thanks to their superior aerodynamics. Piech also launched zinc-coated bodies for longevity — and gave diesel technology a decisive boost with the advent of the fast and ultra-efficient TDI engines. Less known: Piech also decided to put larger gas tanks into cars. Customers loved it. Piech's first-generation Audi V8 was met with derision by competitors; it was too obviously based on the 200/5000.

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.

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.