GALLARDO
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The Gallardo's a landmark Lamborghini: the first genuinely all-new car to be made by Sant'Agata under Audi ownership. It also marked a return for the firm to making a more affordable, usable super sports car than its legendary dynasty of V12s - something it hadn't done since the Jalpa went out of production in 1988. This was Sant’Agata’s first serious crack at the bottom end of the traditional supercar market and was conceived as a direct competitor for the 360 Modena and Porsche 911 Turbo. It went on sale to critical acclaim in 2003.
And the current Gallardo LP560-4 is the living, screaming proof that Lamborghini is taking its future very seriously indeed. Because although it is a faster, lighter, more powerful version of the Gallardo, it is also the cleanest, most economical and ecologically efficient car that Lamborghini has ever produced.
In a nutshell, the 560-4 (560ps, four-wheel drive) represents a more modern way of thinking at Lamborghini, and although it may have been launched in 2008, at a time when £152,280, 202mph supercars weren't exactly flying out of showrooms, it proves how serious the company is about staying relevant and, more to the point, staying in business.
Tough job, but the LP560-4 – 18 per cent cleaner than its predecessor and faster and more powerful to boot – looks like a pretty good start.
Don’t be fooled by the familiar, although still deeply seductive, looks of the 560-4. Visually, it may be only slightly different from the original Gallardo – the nose vents are bigger, the rear lights are smaller and more elegant, and the interior has been ‘rationalised’ to make it easier to interact with, says Lamborghini. But beneath the skin, this is a very different car.
For starters it has a 5.2-litre V10 engine, which not only has a different firing order from the previous 5.0-litre V10 but also more power (552bhp at 8000rpm) and more torque (398lb ft at 6500rpm). It’s cleaner, too, thanks mainly to a Bosch direct-injection fuel system, which allows Lamborghini to claim that this is the fastest-revving direction-injection engine in the world – the limiter doesn’t call stumps until an ear-splitting 8200rpm.
Most of the four-wheel drive chassis is also updated – there are bigger anti-roll bars front and rear, uprated dampers, and significant changes to the steering and rear suspension geometry – as is the hardware and software for the e-gear paddle-shift gearbox. Lamborghini claims that over 90 per cent of Gallardos are bought with the optional paddle-shift ’box and has therefore gone to a lot of effort to improve the system. Shifts in the new Corsa mode occur 40 per cent faster now, and even in regular and Sport modes, the changes happen faster and more smoothly, says Lamborghini.
The 560-4 isn’t just cleaner on emissions; it’s also smoother through the air, because of improved aerodynamics, and more efficient mechanically, thanks to a reduction in friction throughout the car.
Intriguingly, the 560-4 is lighter than the stripped-out Superleggera version of the previous model, providing it with a thumping power-to-weight ratio of 391bhp per tonne.
A Lamborghini wouldn’t be a Lamborghini without a low-slung driving position, a steeply raked windscreen and acres of leather and carbonfibre inside. The Gallardo 560-4 ticks all of these boxes, and with some style, but unlike rather too many of Sant’Agata’s previous creations, these classic cues are accompanied by a genuine sense of quality, excellent ergonomic clarity and a generous level of trim and equipment.
Where the car really succeeds inside is in its ability to blend some fairly obvious Audi parts – its communications package, some of its switchgear and an excellent sat-nav system – without diluting the inherent drama that has so distinguished Lamborghini interiors for over 40 years. You also get an air-con system that actually works, a rear-view image of what’s behind the car, which automatically appears when you select reverse, and a top-quality stereo. Be in no doubt, the 560-4 feels – and indeed is – a class act inside. If ever a supercar reflected its price in the style and quality of its cabin, this is it.
You don’t buy a supercar for practical reasons, yet of its type, the 560 isn’t too bad. The boot in the bonnet is impressively deep and can take one decent-sized squashy bag, and within the cabin there are numerous well-sized cubbies for odds and ends.
The Superleggera model gets even more lashings of carbonfibre trim as part of an overall weight reduction of 70kg, as well as new carbonfibre front seats. The rear windscreen and rear windows are also plastic.
Of course, you can drop the roof (available in black, blue, beige or grey) of the Spyder version at the press of a button, and just over 20sec later you’ll be driving a full convertible. One neat touch is that the rear screen stays in place and acts as a wind deflector with the hood down. You can even drive with the rear screen down and the roof up for a quasi-Targa-style effect, which is a neat way of telling the world that the lump of hair on your head is, in fact, all yours…
At the heart of the Gallardo is a V10 engine that thumps out 552bhp and 398lb ft of torque, but the other key factor is its relative lack of weight. At 1410kg (or 1580kg in test trim measured on our scales) this car is impressively light for a 4WD supercar. When you then align this with the new V10 engine’s delicious soundtrack, the 560 really does have all the ingredients with which to blow your mind. Against our clock it did 60mph in 3.7sec, almost exactly as Lamborghini says it should, and then 100mph in 7.7sec, and 150mph in a very serious 17.3sec.
One contributing factor to its speed is its new gearbox. The shifts themselves may not be the smoothest, because Lamborghini has tuned the software to deliver a deliberate thump on the way up, a quality that we find less than desirable. But you can’t argue with the actual speed of the shifts or the strength of the acceleration at full chat. The engine tears towards its rev limiter in first and you then need to be on high alert not to run it against that limiter by mistake.
We tried the Gallardo with optional carbon-ceramic brakes, and although these work well once warmed, they do feel a bit dead on the road.
The best bit of all about the LP560-4 Spyder is that you can now listen to that 5.2-litre V10 with the hood down. Somehow, being able to hear it so much more clearly actually intensifies the thrill. The raw numbers say the Spyder is fractionally slower than the coupé at 4.0sec to 62mph and 201mph flat out, and that’s purely because it weighs a wee bit more.
The LP570-4 Superleggera, by contrast - with its 562bhp and lesser kerbweight - is alleged to crack 62mph in just 3.4sec.
Time was when a Lamborghini was all about monstering the straights and not falling off through the corners. But the Gallardo 560-4 obliterates that preconception forever with its eye-watering blend of grip, balance and composure, not to mention its steering and traction, both of which are excellent. And that’s to say nothing of the car’s most surprising feature: its ride comfort. The way that the 560-4 feels so soothing and refined on a motorway is testament to the achievement of its engineers.
If there is a criticism of the handling, it’s that when you really start to lean on the 560-4 in a quick corner, the nose does have a tendency to run wide. A very well-timed lift will make the nose tuck in and possibly even allow a dose of oversteer with the ESP disengaged but, in essence, there’s a natural degree of understeer engineered into the chassis that mostly adds to the 560’s civility.
Although you might think that a convertible Lamborghini would be the four-wheeled equivalent of a hen party full of footballers’ wives, it’s actually a very good car. They simply don’t make badly engineered products at Lamborghini any more, and the way that the Gallardo LP560-4 Spyder gives so little away to its coupé cousin dynamically is testament to this. Even on lumpy surfaces, the Spyder feels amazingly well sorted, not remotely wobbly, and basically very much like the tin-top LP560-4.
Lambo has been particularly clever in the Superleggera by avoiding the temptation of going too far, the suspension retaining just enough travel (and excellent damping) to deal with bumps. In this regard, the new Superleggera is better than the previous model, and a razor sharp handling treat for the totally committed.
Day to day, the Gallardo is predictably expensive to run. Fuel consumption is in the mid to high teens on average (with a worst of 8mpg during our test), insurance is suitably horrendous and depreciation is not likely to be bulletproof. That said, we commend Lamborghini for making this Gallardo 18 per cent cleaner than its predecessor. If you’re interested, the CO2 emissions are as low as 327g/km in the cleanest Gallardo, if ‘as low as’ is indeed the correct phrase to use…
The Gallardo starts just about £15k for the manual-equipped LP560-4 model. The e-gear transmission can be had for an extra £8k or so. Spyder versions cost about £10k more than their coupé equivalents. The potent Superleggera version comes in at around £180k, which compares favourably against the likes of the Ferrari 458 Italia and McLaren MP4-12C that its extra performance brings it up against. But is it worth the 18 per cent price increase over the regular Gallardo? For some people, probably it is. But we’re left wishing a car with such track-focused tyres and so much attention paid to weight-saving was a bit more adjustable on the limit.
The Gallardo is well equipped for a Lamborghini and everything works just as it should, which is no doubt down to the Audi influence. Gone are the days when Lamborghinis can be classed as unreliable or flimsy inside.
But servicing costs could make you wince. A new clutch on an E-gear for instance, which you might well need within 5000 miles or so if you abuse it, will set you back the price of a family holiday to the Carribean.
This may be the cheapest way to own a new Lamborghini, but there’s nothing at all junior about it. The Gallardo LP560-4 is easily Lamborghini’s most complete supercar to date. It features a level of quality and usability not normally associated with any car of this kind, let alone one from Lamborghini. It also feels durable, as if it will retain not just its sense of occasion but also its basic integrity for a long time. Not all Lambos have felt this way over the years.
But what truly distinguishes the LP560-4 is shattering performance allied to an almost freakishly civilised demeanour. This is a car that can nearly live with a Ferrari 458 Italia dynamically yet also be perfectly acceptable as everyday transport for two people. In the end, it’s not quite as brilliant as the Ferrari or as advanced as McLaren's MP4-12C, but that doesn’t prevent it from being one of the most evocative supercars we’ve ever tested.
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