1985 Lamborghini Countach Reviews

Most will agree that Giorgio Sanna has the best job in the world. As chief test driver for Lamborghini’s research and development and motorsport divisions, he gets to drive Lamborghinis fast all day long.His work ensures that the handling and performance of future Lamborghini road cars deliver on expectations, and maintain a close relationship with the brand’s Super Trofeo racers. He probably won’t be retiring any time soon.Watch the Lamborghini test driver video here.This reporter is on Twitter: @Mal_Flynn

Lamborghini has released photos and details of its Veneno Roadster -- the open-air variant of the radical Veneno coupe built to help mark the brand's 50th anniversary. The hardtop saw a global debut at the Geneva motor show in March this year, and is being built in an edition of just four for $4.5 million. The Roadster will see a bigger production run -- okay, it's still just going to be nine vehicles -- and for the loss of the roof you pay about $200,000 more. Based on the Aventador, the Veneno shares its 6.5-litre V12 -- tuned to deliver 552kW of power (a lift of 42kW over the donor car) and 690Nm of torque, driving all four wheels via an automated manual transmission. The figures give the coupe the crown as the most powerful of Lambo's road cars, and the fastest, with a 0-100km/h time of 2.8 seconds and a top speed of 356km/h in both hardtop and open forms. The roadster is not far behind, with 2.9 seconds and 355km/h, and is able to match the coupe's performance because it's not hindered by its kind's usual weight penalty. It tips the scales at 1490kg, just 40kg more than the coupe, with liberal use of aircraft-spec carbon fibre using the brand's own forged production process that blends short threads of carbon into the resin and then pressure-cures it in heated molds in just minutes. The wedge body has an aerodynamic setup designed for extreme downforce and stability -- including a deep multiple-plane front spoiler, track-bred rear wing and finned engine cover -- but Lamborghini says the Veneno Roadster also has extremely low wind resistance. This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott  

Lamborghini unveiled the new Gallardo LP 570-4 Squadra Corse at Frankfurt as the second special racing edition spawned by its Super Trofeo series. So of course we want to see it on the track, and the Italian brand has complied with a video giving our first look at it in track action.Almost a clone of the Super Trofeo racer, the street-legal Gallardo LP 570-4 Squadra Corse borrows technology and weight-reduction strategies from the track version, including high-downforce aerodynamics, considerable use of carbon fibre and aluminium -- and a quick-release engine bay cover.Under that cover is the same V10 engine used in the Super Trofeo mated to a robotised e-gear six-speed transmission operated by steering wheel paddles, punting the all-wheel drive Squadra Corse to 100km/h in just 3.4 seconds and on to 200km/h in 10.4 seconds with a top speed of 320km/h.Watch video of the Lamborghini Gallardo LP 570-4 Squadra Corse here.This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott 

Seeing more than 100 Lamborghinis travelling in a rapid convoy is not one of the world’s more common sights, but that’s exactly what the supercar maker’s recent celebration of its 50th anniversary managed to create. The event saw 350 of the raging bull-badged models converge on Lamborghini’s home town of Sant’Agata in Italy.  Despite far from ideal supercar weather, a keen Lamborghini fan managed to capture at least 100 of the celebrating Lambos converge on a hairpin bend in procession. The convoy is somewhat of a walk down Lamborghini memory lane, with a 350GT, a couple of Muiras, Espadas and Countaches, a few Diablos, several Gallardo, Murcielago and Aventadors -- all displaying their distinctive visual and audible wares. For the keen-eyed, at least four of the Aventadors can be seen puffing blue flames from their exhaust orifices on overrun.   Watch the Lamborghini hairpin convoy video here. This reporter is on Twitter: @Mal_Flynn  

When Porsche launched the Cayenne as the world's first performance luxury SUV, people asked 'why?'. After the Cayenne's success, they're more likely to look at the other top-tier brands and ask 'when?'. The global appetite for SUVs shows no signs of being satisfied, and one by one the luxury brands are rolling out their softroaders. Bentley’s has already been greenlighted by owner VW Group, and its stablemate Lamborghini looks set to get production approval for the Urus concept unveiled at last year's Beijing motor show. "We're working on it and it will come, which will be good for the brand," Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelman was cited as saying in a report in industry journal Automotive News. Lamborghini has previously suggested that, if put into production, the SUV could arrive in 2016, but Winkelman, speaking during a showroom opening in Tokyo last week, declined to give timing or further details. "We're going low profile now. I can't tell you much on details now, but when we get close to the launch, we will have more." The Urus is not the first offroader from Lamborghini. Prior to the Italian brand being bought by Volkswagen Group, it had produced the aggressively-styled LM002 between 1986 and 1993, but production faltered and stopped after the vehicle failed to attract the military attention it was targeting. This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott  

The Lamborghini Gallardo is about 10 years old and is well due for retirement and a replacement. Cue the Lamborghini Cabrera. That's the working name of the car that will replace the Gallardo, and the latest images -- snapped while the Cabrera was testing at the Nurburgring circuit in Feb -- show it's echoing the long lean lines of the Aventador.The new entry-level supercar is tipped to be powered by an updated version of the 5.2-litre V10 engine found in the current model, but with extra output extracted to hit 447kW -- a hike of about 40kW over the current base model Gallardo and 28kW over the top-spec version. Following Lamborghini's naming convention, that could also the a LP 600-4 added to the eventual moniker.You can depend on it having standard all-wheel drive, although it's likely a rear-wheel drive version will continue to be offered. A new seven-speed dual clutch transmission is set to replace the aging e-gear automated manual, but there's little chance of a pure manual shifter.Aluminium and carbon fibre will largely comprise the construction to help save weight, with a drop expected from the Gallardo's tare mass of 1600kg (1470kg for the rear-wheel drive).The Cabrera is tipped to arrive late in 2014, and Volkswagen Group-owned brand will be sharing the Lamborghini platform with stablemate Audi for its second-generation R8, which should arrive about a year after the Lambo.This reporter is on Twitter: @karlapincott

Grand Theft Auto truly was the first blockbuster game of the modern gaming era. GTA III, launched to almost universal acclaim in 2001 on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox reinvented how we play games and reset our thinking about what we might find in games.There had been big world games before GTA - and plenty since - but none had been so well-executed or offered the variety DMA (now Rockstar North) and its hugely talented team could cram into a disc.GTA sets itself apart from the rest of the herd by being a fantastic piece of storytelling before anything else. Many games that want to be anything like GTA forget that the story can't just be a series of set pieces with the story shoe-horned in around them. Their disregard for story is reflected in the lacklustre voice-acting and direction.GTA games are always funny and always well-acted and written. The story holds you, rather than being an inconvenience.Grand Theft Auto V yet again challenges the status quo. Its world is truly massive, surely the biggest of any game, but with a rich environment full of people and buildings and cars. You could conceivably fill weeks roaming around and finding plenty of little things to do without ever touching the main game.The main game is as controversial as ever. Australia's newly-minted R rating was almost made for games from the Rockstar stable. The team has never been far from controversy and has often pointed to Australian censors' inability to understand the genre.The fictional city of Los Santos joins Vice City and Liberty City as a fully-formed urban environment, completely devoid of any sense of morality.You can cheerfully mow down pedestrians with your car or motorbike, randomly assault passers-by and, as part of the story, rob jewellery shops, slaughter rival gangs and spend a lot of time up to absolutely no good at all.The game itself is much the same as before, but with a refined set of gameplay mechanics. Its slick execution is the result of a rumoured budget of $245 million and five year development. The wealth of experience that came from working on GTA IV with both the PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles means that Rockstar has pushed them to their limits in their twilight years.The cars are, as ever, a wonderful mixture of real cars but with fake names and just enough tweaking to keep the lawyers away. Each of them has their own very distinct handling model, from floaty, long-travel suspension on the Range Rover Sport-like Gallivanter Baller through to the flat-everywhere Voltic by Coil, a rip-off of the Tesla Roadster.From Trevor's falling-apart redneck truck, through to Gallardo and R8-esque machines you can steal from the street, there's sixty years of carefully filtered automotive history lying around Los Santos' many streets.Go to the airport and you can drive a tug or fly a plane. You can jump in the water and hijack an array of boats, grab your scuba gear and go diving or, if you're feeling green (or short of time) catch the tram or train around.In and out of game missions, you can race through the streets of the city, from densely packed narrow streets through to the mobile-home populated, wide open desert of Sandy Shores. Street furniture, such as lights and park benches will either fall over when you hit them or, if they're a little more stout, stop you in your tracks.The variety of experience is worth the purchase, let alone the fun of playing the missions. That variety is further enhanced with a 16-player online mode where you can co-operatively rob a bank or race through the streets.The three main characters in the single-player mode - Franklin, Michael and Trevor - are hardened criminals in their own right. Each has a rich back story and an even richer line in dark humour. Trevor is particularly amusing as he is rolled-gold nuts and gets all the best lines.The three characters are deeply flawed and have poor impluse control - Michael catches his wife en flagrante with the tennis coach, so pulls down what he thinks is the man's house. It turns out to be owned by a gangster who then appears at Michael's house with a baseball bat and a demand for $2.5 million to fix the house.These character flaws are integral to the story and allow for spectacular missions. The ever-present police add to the challenge as they're far more persistent in this iteration - and less stupid.GTA V is a stunning achievement because it does everything so well. It is absolutely not a game for children - the bare breasts in the strip clubs and the already-infamous torture scene see to that (not to mention the extremely colourful language, horrific storylines and unrelenting violence).For car lovers it's a game of Eye Spy as you try to match the various in-game cars with their real world counterparts and gravitate to the one closest to your own tastes. The game is a hilarious free-for-all with a dark sense of humour and sense of the ridiculous. It engages the brain not just for problem-solving but with its epic, blockbuster feel.Hollywood should rightly be terrified of the increasing revenues of video games, because games like GTA V show how much better than a movie a video game can be. 

The owner of a Lamborghini Aventador has been fined and his car confiscated after it was discovered it was actually a Hyundai. Easy to mistake the two, of course. Police in the Chinese city of Chongqing claimed the Aventador replica after the owner tried to sell it in a shopping centre. Police weren't fussed about the rip-off but by the fact the plastic car was illegally modified and didn't have licence plates. China's vehicle laws are becoming increasingly harsher. Car buyers need a “blue book” from the China Vehicle Inspection authority that lists the specifications of the car and a photo. Any changes to the data or picture are illegal. The baby-blue coupe was based on a second-generation Hyundai Tiburon with a $350 (in China) body kit. Chinese newspapers say the owner was fined about $130 and lose 12 points on the 20-point driver licence. The car will be returned to him but he bodykit will be removed. The writer is on Twitter: @cg_dowling  

What do you park in your carport when you can afford anything you want? A solid gold Lamborghini Aventador that will cost $8 million, perhaps. And that's just for what will be the most expensive model car ever made.Get your credit card ready, because the car is being planned, and will be carved from a single 498kg block of solid pure gold, with a finished weight estimated at 25kg. The interior will be finished in platinum and gemstones.It's the creation of engineer and artist Robert Gulpen, who has built several luxury car models from gold, silver and platinum over the past decade. However, while this is set to be his most ambitious project, it's serious enough to have earned partnership from Lamborghini.Gulpen first mooted the model in 2011, but now it seems plans are well under way, with the finished work intended to head for an auction that will see about $700,000 donated to charities chosen by Lamborghini.Gülpen's process will use computer-modelling of the real Aventador to feed data to a five-axis milling machine that will carve an aluminum mold, from which he will produce a carbon fibre 'maquette' of the model. The winning bidder at the auction will then be able to designate and personalise details for the finished piece.Gülpen hopes to create three new Guinness Book of Records entries for himself and the buyer: the most expensive model, the most secure container and show case, and the most expensive Lamborghini logo.But he also wants it to stand as a salute to the 'legend of the automobile', he says. "The most expensive and precious model car in the world. It is to be an icon, expressing the fascinating historical development of the automotive industry and the appreciation of people for cars all over."This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott 

Mansory is not known for producing anything close to being subtle. Its vehicle designs are typically way over-the-top affairs that lead to polarising opinions. That's what makes the Carbonado such a surprise.It's a Lamborghini Aventador that's been given a Mansory makeover... and it's rather well done. If you want to be outrageous, the Aventador is a great place to start, and adding carbon fibre by the truckload can push the outrageousness to another level without (really) screaming in peoples' faces.Sure, it's still brash. But it's the right kind of look for a vehicle as insane as the Aventador. The Carbonado boasts carbon fibre pretty much everywhere. It adds a new front lower fascia as well with an interesting daytime running light element in the intakes, which lends an almost naval-aviation vibe to the entire car.It's not just the body that's been given a reworking, however, as Mansory also applied its wrenches to the engine. The Aventador 6.5-litre V12 engine has been given a boost thanks to a pair of turbochargers, which increase the power to levels as insane as the appearance of the bodywork implies.The "standard" Aventador produces 515kW, while the Mansory Carbonado pumps out 933kW. That pushes this vehicle from 0-100km/h in an eye-popping 2.6 seconds. At the same time, the top speed has been raised to 378km/h. This actually might be a fighter jet wearing a Lamborghini suit. In fact, that's the look that Mansory is going for. The tuner even relocated the starting button from the centre stack to the roof to highlight the feeling.www.motorauthority.com