Autocar drives LP550-2 Valentino Balboni
#1
08-05-2009, 02:56 PM
Autocar drives LP550-2 Valentino Balboni
Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni
What is it?
Officially, it’s a tribute to Lamborghini’s legendary, semi-retired test driver, Valentino Balboni. Unofficially, it heralds a series of new rear-drive Lamborghini models (it's the first non-4WD Lambo since the gut-wrenching Diablo SV a decade ago).
The Balboni has lost weight with the removal of the front diff, driveshaft and propshafts. It has also lost 10bhp, but it seems to gain so much more.
Strictly speaking, there will only be 250 of them, but they will herald a new era at Lamborghini where entry-level rear-drivers will sit alongside the traditional all-paw, all-weather supercars.
Balboni wanted a car with minimal electronic assistance, he wanted a nimble machine with an accurate front end and he wanted to be able to slide the car around at will.
So it’s still based on the same aluminium spaceframe chassis, it still has its suspension bolted directly to the chassis and it’s all still based around the 5.2-litre, direct-injection V10 powerplant.
While the car we tested ran the paddle-shift e-gear system to switch through its six gears, Balboni insisted that it should be available as a manual, and so it is.
What’s it like?
Well, that paintwork won’t be for everyone, even if Lambos have never been cars for the shy.
The interior is brighter and somehow more cheerful as well, with a combination of lighter colours and softer leathers.
But the engine note is the first thing you really notice. It sounds different at idle, with its new exhaust, and it’s not as rough or gruff as it seems in the LP560-4 and its idling NVH is considerably lower.
It’s smoother when you pick up the throttle, too, and seems to be a bit more free from the mid-range upwards (even though standard Gallardo engines hardly struggle to spin).
The only thing you notice other than that is that the steering talks more and it has a slightly tail-down stance compared with the stock car. Find some corners and you find out why this is and just how much it accentuates its differences over its all-wheel-drive siblings.
The first series of quick bends are revealing: the Balboni car instantly makes even Gallardos feel cumbersome and ponderous. They’re not, of course. They’re among the sharpest-handling machines around, but the LP550-2 is simply brilliant.
Its diff-less front end does an astonishingly good job of gathering every scrap of crucial, real-time info on what’s happening at the contact patch, then sending it up the steering column. It turns in to a corner much harder, initially, than the standard Gallardo and then lets you choose your stance on the way out.
There’s no more waiting until you’ve convinced the centre diff to send as much drive rearwards as possible. Now, all that power has no alternative, and that lets you adopt a wonderfully neutral, accurate cornering stance.
And, when the road suddenly changes direction, the LP550-2 becomes incandescent, delightfully flicking through the direction changes, biting hard at the front end to start things, easing its weight to the back, then firing out again.
It’s not that it’s faster point to point than the all-paw car, because it’s probably, almost certainly, not. But it feels like it is. There’s an unapologetic joy about it and you can’t help but being slapped in the face by how much lighter, more agile and more entertaining it feels.
For all that, though, it’s not a tail-happy drift king unless that’s what you provoke from it. The ESP intervention point may be higher than it is in the standard car, but it’s still there; it just lets go of the reins faster after it has done its job than in the stock car.
There’s a Sport mode, of course, which shifts faster and, ironically, more smoothly than in standard (or in the dead-ordinary Automatic mode), and the Corsa track mode is even more aggressive again. Still, it’s nowhere near a Ferrari 430 Scuderia in terms of shift times.
The only sensible place to even try to slide the tail is on the exits of second-gear bends, but the ESP software in Corsa mode keeps it in check very well and it always feels stable and safe even when it’s sliding.
The really odd thing is that it’s so much fun this way that you start to wonder whether the Gallardo was originally designed with this layout in mind or whether they’ve just done a superb conversion.
Should I buy one?
Oh, yes. By any means you can, yes.
Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni - Road Test First Drive - Autocar.co.uk
What is it?
Officially, it’s a tribute to Lamborghini’s legendary, semi-retired test driver, Valentino Balboni. Unofficially, it heralds a series of new rear-drive Lamborghini models (it's the first non-4WD Lambo since the gut-wrenching Diablo SV a decade ago).
The Balboni has lost weight with the removal of the front diff, driveshaft and propshafts. It has also lost 10bhp, but it seems to gain so much more.
Strictly speaking, there will only be 250 of them, but they will herald a new era at Lamborghini where entry-level rear-drivers will sit alongside the traditional all-paw, all-weather supercars.
Balboni wanted a car with minimal electronic assistance, he wanted a nimble machine with an accurate front end and he wanted to be able to slide the car around at will.
So it’s still based on the same aluminium spaceframe chassis, it still has its suspension bolted directly to the chassis and it’s all still based around the 5.2-litre, direct-injection V10 powerplant.
While the car we tested ran the paddle-shift e-gear system to switch through its six gears, Balboni insisted that it should be available as a manual, and so it is.
What’s it like?
Well, that paintwork won’t be for everyone, even if Lambos have never been cars for the shy.
The interior is brighter and somehow more cheerful as well, with a combination of lighter colours and softer leathers.
But the engine note is the first thing you really notice. It sounds different at idle, with its new exhaust, and it’s not as rough or gruff as it seems in the LP560-4 and its idling NVH is considerably lower.
It’s smoother when you pick up the throttle, too, and seems to be a bit more free from the mid-range upwards (even though standard Gallardo engines hardly struggle to spin).
The only thing you notice other than that is that the steering talks more and it has a slightly tail-down stance compared with the stock car. Find some corners and you find out why this is and just how much it accentuates its differences over its all-wheel-drive siblings.
The first series of quick bends are revealing: the Balboni car instantly makes even Gallardos feel cumbersome and ponderous. They’re not, of course. They’re among the sharpest-handling machines around, but the LP550-2 is simply brilliant.
Its diff-less front end does an astonishingly good job of gathering every scrap of crucial, real-time info on what’s happening at the contact patch, then sending it up the steering column. It turns in to a corner much harder, initially, than the standard Gallardo and then lets you choose your stance on the way out.
There’s no more waiting until you’ve convinced the centre diff to send as much drive rearwards as possible. Now, all that power has no alternative, and that lets you adopt a wonderfully neutral, accurate cornering stance.
And, when the road suddenly changes direction, the LP550-2 becomes incandescent, delightfully flicking through the direction changes, biting hard at the front end to start things, easing its weight to the back, then firing out again.
It’s not that it’s faster point to point than the all-paw car, because it’s probably, almost certainly, not. But it feels like it is. There’s an unapologetic joy about it and you can’t help but being slapped in the face by how much lighter, more agile and more entertaining it feels.
For all that, though, it’s not a tail-happy drift king unless that’s what you provoke from it. The ESP intervention point may be higher than it is in the standard car, but it’s still there; it just lets go of the reins faster after it has done its job than in the stock car.
There’s a Sport mode, of course, which shifts faster and, ironically, more smoothly than in standard (or in the dead-ordinary Automatic mode), and the Corsa track mode is even more aggressive again. Still, it’s nowhere near a Ferrari 430 Scuderia in terms of shift times.
The only sensible place to even try to slide the tail is on the exits of second-gear bends, but the ESP software in Corsa mode keeps it in check very well and it always feels stable and safe even when it’s sliding.
The really odd thing is that it’s so much fun this way that you start to wonder whether the Gallardo was originally designed with this layout in mind or whether they’ve just done a superb conversion.
Should I buy one?
Oh, yes. By any means you can, yes.
Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni - Road Test First Drive - Autocar.co.uk
#2
08-06-2009, 02:05 AM
And first drive by Edmunds for better comparison.
Lamborghini's First Two-Wheeler in 10 Years
In the fairly lonely farm country that surrounds Lamborghini headquarters in Sant'Agata Bolognese, it can be a challenge on some hot summer days to invent the drama and beauty of Italy. Then again, hand us a 542-horsepower rear-wheel-drive Gallardo painted in 1970s-style smackdown Ithaca Green with a big white-and-gold stripe down the middle, and we could make beauty and drama happen in a damned landfill.
You're burning your retinas on the 2010 Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni and, trust us, you cannot wait to drive it someday. Not a Lambo test goes by without our trying desperately to force some hot oversteer out of the usual all-wheel-drive Gallardo or Murcièlago chassis. Until today, the best we could hope for was a long lateral push over a massive slab of real estate. Now we have it all.
The last Lamborghini for the street with rear-wheel drive was the Diablo GT in 1999, which came with a 567-hp 5,992cc V12 created for GT2 racing. Since then, only some track versions have come with 2WD, such as the Murcièlago R-GT in 2003 developed with Reiter Engineering and Audi Sport.
So, it's been awhile. Not that the standard Gallardo with all wheels tugging is a pushover, but it isn't much of an intriguing driver's challenge in that legendary stay-alert Italian way. So now this has all been resolved with the 2010 Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni.
All Hail Valentino!
Valentino Balboni is the most faithful and hard-working company test-driver Lamborghini will ever have in its history. He started back in April 1968 when he was 19 years old and continued until Italian government regulations forced him to retire as of October 2008. This is a Lamborghini lifer if ever there was one, and the man has witnessed it all.
On apprenticing with the legendary Bob Wallace, Lamborghini's first test-driver, Balboni recalls, "If you were in with Bob, you were fine. If you never managed to get in his good graces, then you were shut out. I remember doing one of our usual 1,000-km endurance runs from Bologna to Bari and back in a Countach and he didn't say but five words to me the whole way, and four of those were critiques of my driving."
On Ferruccio Lamborghini: "He hired me personally. He was really a good guy and he embodied that spirit of the independent benevolent company boss that still existed before the labor movement here in 1968. That was the dawn of the Miura and the final chapter of the original company. By then, Ferruccio had established a sense of mission and passion. We were all so young then and he was like a second papà."
Regarding the 2010 Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2, Balboni tells us, "Starting in the fall of 2008, I began getting phone calls from the technicians and they would ask me one question here and another there — what would I prefer in my ideal Lamborghini? After a while of this, I put it all together and went to ask them what they were doing calling me like this. Then around the time of my official retirement at 60, they came to me and told me what was up."
Balboni's Wish List
At the very least, anyone smart who has done a satisfying and crucial job for one company for 40 years knows what they like. "The most important ingredient for me," Balboni recounts, "was of course that the car be rear-wheel drive if at all possible. I learned all of my testing techniques driving some of the most exciting rear-wheel-drive sports cars, and I need that feel at the wheel and in the chassis if the car is to bear my name." (How many living guys can say this?)
Then Balboni requested that the standard shifter be a six-speed manual, even though he knows the vast majority of 2010 Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 buyers will choose the optional e-gear automated manual with column-mounted shift paddles as on our test car. Be a man! Shift it yourself! In this special case, we would stick with the manual, too, frankly.
He then naturally got into the suspension requests and there was the tire conversation, plus the inevitable (for a marketing and image maven like Lamborghini) paint and leather and wheel choices. There was also the chat about how to raise the threshold on stability-control intervention. It's also interesting that Balboni prefers to keep the ceramic brake discs as an option. It's a choice we understand as regards traditional pedal feel, but we do like our ceramics on such heady beasts as this.
Aesthetically speaking, the heritage-full Miura touches are plain to see on the outer paint mit stripes and inner leather echoing the stripes theme in Polar White leather. The 5.2-liter direct-injected V10 engine is naked under polycarbonate glass so you can contemplate its 542 hp at 8,000 rpm and 398 pound-feet of torque at 6,500 rpm.
Full Speed Ahead
We were so jazzed about finally sitting inside a modern rear-wheel-drive Lambo that it was hard to suppress the teenage squealing.
First off, though the output of the Balboni car's V10 is down 10 hp on the standard model in an effort to make it a little more tractable for better car control, the curb weight plummets 265 pounds to a nimble 3,042 pounds. By the math we learned at school, this means each horse of the AWD Gallardo pulls 6 pounds, while each nag of the LP550-2 pulls just 5.6 pounds.
In the absence of extra traction from the front axle chipping in, the RWD Balboni's acceleration to 100 km/h (62 mph) is estimated to be just two-tenths of a second arrears of the 4WD chassis, or 3.9 seconds. The Balboni's top speed is also 199 mph versus the LP560-4's 202 mph. It's all bloody fast, really, so no criticism coming from us. These little differences add a small amount of safety, too, if you really want to analyze it.
The Squiggly Bits
But the secret weapon is in that feel from the steering wheel, plus the work in chassis dynamics that Balboni contributed during the first half of 2009. "We also had an entire day flogging the final tester car around the Nürburgring," he says to us. "It was crucial to really perfect that already improved sense of turn-in at all the curves." And we can attest that wheel feel and turn-in and a more natural sense of weight shift are all there to be enjoyed. With stability control fully disengaged and the transmission and throttle set to Corsa (it was, after all, a hot, bone-dry day over empty roads), we went to work like never before in a Gallardo.
Springs and dampers have been given firmer rates (though still short of the stiff-legged Ferrari 430 Scuderia), and the front antiroll bar is notably stiffer for quicker steering response. While the front tires are standard Gallardo kit — Pirelli P Zero 235/35ZR19 91Y — the rear tires change to a harder-compound version of the standard 295/30ZR19 100Y for better wrangling of all that bull power being directed to the rear wheels. The rears also get a tread pattern created specifically for this car.
If the stability control is left engaged, and with everything else in Corsa, it only activates once you hammer the brakes, so we felt free to play even in this setup. There's always the limited-slip differential at work as well, optimized at 45 percent engagement for this car. Unsprung weight at the corners is lessened nicely by using the 19-inch Scorpius forged-aluminum wheels first unveiled with the Gallardo Superleggera in 2007.
It is howling good fun, guys. We have envisioned this more natural Gallardo every time the LP560-4 came up short in hot, dynamically challenging sections of road or track. With rear-wheel drive, the Gallardo is so liberating and yet demanding, and thus perfect. As we said before, all we would change would be to swap the e-gear automated tranny for a manual gearbox and exchange the good feel of the steel brake rotors for the power and fade resistance of the optional ceramics.
Clever Little Launch of a Huger Plan
In a touch of whimsy, the VW/Audi/Lamborghini powers that be have launched this 2010 Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni — or, better yet, this chassis — very discreetly. Despite the fact that a chorus of aficionados has been screaming for this sort of car since the late 1990s, Lamborghini is deliberately containing its glee.
Make no mistake about it, though, this is simply the first usage of a corporate rear-wheel-drive supercar chassis, and we're going to see a lot more of it in coming years. Both the Gallardo and Murcièlago — just for starters — are destined to get specific rear-wheel-drive models in addition to the current all-wheel-drive versions, and not in just Valentino Balboni-style limited editions.
Shipments of the LP550-2 Valentino Balboni — from the limited run of 250 units — start arriving in the U.S. by late October after the Europeans get theirs in mid-September. Pricing starts at $219,800, or 11 percent over the LP560-4.
A still spry Valentino Balboni has a current two-year contract with Lamborghini as a consultant through 2010, renewable ad infinitum. Hallelujah.
2010 Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni First Drive on Inside Line
In the fairly lonely farm country that surrounds Lamborghini headquarters in Sant'Agata Bolognese, it can be a challenge on some hot summer days to invent the drama and beauty of Italy. Then again, hand us a 542-horsepower rear-wheel-drive Gallardo painted in 1970s-style smackdown Ithaca Green with a big white-and-gold stripe down the middle, and we could make beauty and drama happen in a damned landfill.
You're burning your retinas on the 2010 Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni and, trust us, you cannot wait to drive it someday. Not a Lambo test goes by without our trying desperately to force some hot oversteer out of the usual all-wheel-drive Gallardo or Murcièlago chassis. Until today, the best we could hope for was a long lateral push over a massive slab of real estate. Now we have it all.
The last Lamborghini for the street with rear-wheel drive was the Diablo GT in 1999, which came with a 567-hp 5,992cc V12 created for GT2 racing. Since then, only some track versions have come with 2WD, such as the Murcièlago R-GT in 2003 developed with Reiter Engineering and Audi Sport.
So, it's been awhile. Not that the standard Gallardo with all wheels tugging is a pushover, but it isn't much of an intriguing driver's challenge in that legendary stay-alert Italian way. So now this has all been resolved with the 2010 Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni.
All Hail Valentino!
Valentino Balboni is the most faithful and hard-working company test-driver Lamborghini will ever have in its history. He started back in April 1968 when he was 19 years old and continued until Italian government regulations forced him to retire as of October 2008. This is a Lamborghini lifer if ever there was one, and the man has witnessed it all.
On apprenticing with the legendary Bob Wallace, Lamborghini's first test-driver, Balboni recalls, "If you were in with Bob, you were fine. If you never managed to get in his good graces, then you were shut out. I remember doing one of our usual 1,000-km endurance runs from Bologna to Bari and back in a Countach and he didn't say but five words to me the whole way, and four of those were critiques of my driving."
On Ferruccio Lamborghini: "He hired me personally. He was really a good guy and he embodied that spirit of the independent benevolent company boss that still existed before the labor movement here in 1968. That was the dawn of the Miura and the final chapter of the original company. By then, Ferruccio had established a sense of mission and passion. We were all so young then and he was like a second papà."
Regarding the 2010 Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2, Balboni tells us, "Starting in the fall of 2008, I began getting phone calls from the technicians and they would ask me one question here and another there — what would I prefer in my ideal Lamborghini? After a while of this, I put it all together and went to ask them what they were doing calling me like this. Then around the time of my official retirement at 60, they came to me and told me what was up."
Balboni's Wish List
At the very least, anyone smart who has done a satisfying and crucial job for one company for 40 years knows what they like. "The most important ingredient for me," Balboni recounts, "was of course that the car be rear-wheel drive if at all possible. I learned all of my testing techniques driving some of the most exciting rear-wheel-drive sports cars, and I need that feel at the wheel and in the chassis if the car is to bear my name." (How many living guys can say this?)
Then Balboni requested that the standard shifter be a six-speed manual, even though he knows the vast majority of 2010 Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 buyers will choose the optional e-gear automated manual with column-mounted shift paddles as on our test car. Be a man! Shift it yourself! In this special case, we would stick with the manual, too, frankly.
He then naturally got into the suspension requests and there was the tire conversation, plus the inevitable (for a marketing and image maven like Lamborghini) paint and leather and wheel choices. There was also the chat about how to raise the threshold on stability-control intervention. It's also interesting that Balboni prefers to keep the ceramic brake discs as an option. It's a choice we understand as regards traditional pedal feel, but we do like our ceramics on such heady beasts as this.
Aesthetically speaking, the heritage-full Miura touches are plain to see on the outer paint mit stripes and inner leather echoing the stripes theme in Polar White leather. The 5.2-liter direct-injected V10 engine is naked under polycarbonate glass so you can contemplate its 542 hp at 8,000 rpm and 398 pound-feet of torque at 6,500 rpm.
Full Speed Ahead
We were so jazzed about finally sitting inside a modern rear-wheel-drive Lambo that it was hard to suppress the teenage squealing.
First off, though the output of the Balboni car's V10 is down 10 hp on the standard model in an effort to make it a little more tractable for better car control, the curb weight plummets 265 pounds to a nimble 3,042 pounds. By the math we learned at school, this means each horse of the AWD Gallardo pulls 6 pounds, while each nag of the LP550-2 pulls just 5.6 pounds.
In the absence of extra traction from the front axle chipping in, the RWD Balboni's acceleration to 100 km/h (62 mph) is estimated to be just two-tenths of a second arrears of the 4WD chassis, or 3.9 seconds. The Balboni's top speed is also 199 mph versus the LP560-4's 202 mph. It's all bloody fast, really, so no criticism coming from us. These little differences add a small amount of safety, too, if you really want to analyze it.
The Squiggly Bits
But the secret weapon is in that feel from the steering wheel, plus the work in chassis dynamics that Balboni contributed during the first half of 2009. "We also had an entire day flogging the final tester car around the Nürburgring," he says to us. "It was crucial to really perfect that already improved sense of turn-in at all the curves." And we can attest that wheel feel and turn-in and a more natural sense of weight shift are all there to be enjoyed. With stability control fully disengaged and the transmission and throttle set to Corsa (it was, after all, a hot, bone-dry day over empty roads), we went to work like never before in a Gallardo.
Springs and dampers have been given firmer rates (though still short of the stiff-legged Ferrari 430 Scuderia), and the front antiroll bar is notably stiffer for quicker steering response. While the front tires are standard Gallardo kit — Pirelli P Zero 235/35ZR19 91Y — the rear tires change to a harder-compound version of the standard 295/30ZR19 100Y for better wrangling of all that bull power being directed to the rear wheels. The rears also get a tread pattern created specifically for this car.
If the stability control is left engaged, and with everything else in Corsa, it only activates once you hammer the brakes, so we felt free to play even in this setup. There's always the limited-slip differential at work as well, optimized at 45 percent engagement for this car. Unsprung weight at the corners is lessened nicely by using the 19-inch Scorpius forged-aluminum wheels first unveiled with the Gallardo Superleggera in 2007.
It is howling good fun, guys. We have envisioned this more natural Gallardo every time the LP560-4 came up short in hot, dynamically challenging sections of road or track. With rear-wheel drive, the Gallardo is so liberating and yet demanding, and thus perfect. As we said before, all we would change would be to swap the e-gear automated tranny for a manual gearbox and exchange the good feel of the steel brake rotors for the power and fade resistance of the optional ceramics.
Clever Little Launch of a Huger Plan
In a touch of whimsy, the VW/Audi/Lamborghini powers that be have launched this 2010 Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni — or, better yet, this chassis — very discreetly. Despite the fact that a chorus of aficionados has been screaming for this sort of car since the late 1990s, Lamborghini is deliberately containing its glee.
Make no mistake about it, though, this is simply the first usage of a corporate rear-wheel-drive supercar chassis, and we're going to see a lot more of it in coming years. Both the Gallardo and Murcièlago — just for starters — are destined to get specific rear-wheel-drive models in addition to the current all-wheel-drive versions, and not in just Valentino Balboni-style limited editions.
Shipments of the LP550-2 Valentino Balboni — from the limited run of 250 units — start arriving in the U.S. by late October after the Europeans get theirs in mid-September. Pricing starts at $219,800, or 11 percent over the LP560-4.
A still spry Valentino Balboni has a current two-year contract with Lamborghini as a consultant through 2010, renewable ad infinitum. Hallelujah.
2010 Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni First Drive on Inside Line
#3
08-13-2009, 07:00 AM
One more LP550-2 Valentino Balboni test drive by Autocar, this time with video
Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2
Video:
Autocar Videos - Autocar.co.uk
What is it?
The new limited edition rear-wheel drive Gallardo now driven in the UK.
The back story is probably well known by now – as a retirement present for its legendary test driver Valentino Balboni, Lamborghini is producing a limited run of 250 Gallardos in Balboni’s ideal specification – apparently manual and rear wheel drive.
While that sounds like an extremely appealing proposition, the question is, does it work on the road and how different does it feel to the regular all-wheel drive Gallardo?
What’s it like?
Excellent. To start with, at slow speeds the LP550-2 feels lighter and more agile, especially the steering, which without the mechanicals and weight of the front drive, is lighter and more textured.
Not that we could ever describe the regular Gallardo as cumbersome, but at times you do have to be quite deliberate with your steering inputs, where as in the Balboni these come naturally, making the car feel less of a handful and more sprightly.
Another difference immediately obvious is the positive effect the 2wd drive transformation has had on the transmission.
Although it is possible to specify the LP550-2 with E-gear, the car we tried had a manual box, and was all the better for it. Losing the front differential having made the shift smoother and clutch action lighter.
On the track, the Balboni is, as you would expect, less foolproof than the regular LP560-4, but neither is it a complete handful. There is good front-end bite, and clear communication through the steering of the grip avialble. And when you do exceed the limit of adhesion (not difficult with 542bhp) the break away is progressive and nicely balanced.
While this is the most Ferrari like of any recent Lamborghini there is still a noticeable difference between this and the 430 Scuderia. The Ferrari more technical and pointy, its forte entry speed and traction management, the Balboni more honest and forgiving, offering a more old fashioned take on chassis balance.
So it works at slow speeds and works on the track, but the best news is that the LP550-2 is a fantastic road car too.
Despite the slightly reduced power output (the 4wd Gallardo has 552bhp) the lighter Balboni feels every bit as fast, if not quicker. Ok, the ride is firm, especially at town speeds, but on B-roads it is supple enough and the body control first-rate.
And as a result of the improved steering and keener turn-in, it is more accurate, and with the power directed exclusively to the rear wheels, more adjustable on the throttle.
As a result, even at moderate speeds the Balboni is more exciting and satisfying than the regular car, without being significantly more demanding or intimidating.
With plenty of grip and sufficiently quick-witted electronics, you’re unlikely to get into serious trouble unless you deliberately go looking for it.
Should I buy one?
That depends on your personal preference.
The regular all-wheel drive Gallardo feels more planted and offers extraordinary all weather acceleration, and for some that will make it the preferred choice.
For others, and us included, the combination of more feelsome manageable controls, better balance and greater exhilaration make the Balboni the more appealing prospect.
While currently the rear drive Gallardo is limited to the 250 Balbonis, we suspect that having set the precedent with this car, we’ll see more rear-driven Lambos in the future. Which can be no bad thing.
Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 - Road Test First Drive - Autocar.co.uk
Video:
Autocar Videos - Autocar.co.uk
What is it?
The new limited edition rear-wheel drive Gallardo now driven in the UK.
The back story is probably well known by now – as a retirement present for its legendary test driver Valentino Balboni, Lamborghini is producing a limited run of 250 Gallardos in Balboni’s ideal specification – apparently manual and rear wheel drive.
While that sounds like an extremely appealing proposition, the question is, does it work on the road and how different does it feel to the regular all-wheel drive Gallardo?
What’s it like?
Excellent. To start with, at slow speeds the LP550-2 feels lighter and more agile, especially the steering, which without the mechanicals and weight of the front drive, is lighter and more textured.
Not that we could ever describe the regular Gallardo as cumbersome, but at times you do have to be quite deliberate with your steering inputs, where as in the Balboni these come naturally, making the car feel less of a handful and more sprightly.
Another difference immediately obvious is the positive effect the 2wd drive transformation has had on the transmission.
Although it is possible to specify the LP550-2 with E-gear, the car we tried had a manual box, and was all the better for it. Losing the front differential having made the shift smoother and clutch action lighter.
On the track, the Balboni is, as you would expect, less foolproof than the regular LP560-4, but neither is it a complete handful. There is good front-end bite, and clear communication through the steering of the grip avialble. And when you do exceed the limit of adhesion (not difficult with 542bhp) the break away is progressive and nicely balanced.
While this is the most Ferrari like of any recent Lamborghini there is still a noticeable difference between this and the 430 Scuderia. The Ferrari more technical and pointy, its forte entry speed and traction management, the Balboni more honest and forgiving, offering a more old fashioned take on chassis balance.
So it works at slow speeds and works on the track, but the best news is that the LP550-2 is a fantastic road car too.
Despite the slightly reduced power output (the 4wd Gallardo has 552bhp) the lighter Balboni feels every bit as fast, if not quicker. Ok, the ride is firm, especially at town speeds, but on B-roads it is supple enough and the body control first-rate.
And as a result of the improved steering and keener turn-in, it is more accurate, and with the power directed exclusively to the rear wheels, more adjustable on the throttle.
As a result, even at moderate speeds the Balboni is more exciting and satisfying than the regular car, without being significantly more demanding or intimidating.
With plenty of grip and sufficiently quick-witted electronics, you’re unlikely to get into serious trouble unless you deliberately go looking for it.
Should I buy one?
That depends on your personal preference.
The regular all-wheel drive Gallardo feels more planted and offers extraordinary all weather acceleration, and for some that will make it the preferred choice.
For others, and us included, the combination of more feelsome manageable controls, better balance and greater exhilaration make the Balboni the more appealing prospect.
While currently the rear drive Gallardo is limited to the 250 Balbonis, we suspect that having set the precedent with this car, we’ll see more rear-driven Lambos in the future. Which can be no bad thing.
Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 - Road Test First Drive - Autocar.co.uk
#5
08-13-2009, 05:34 PM
#6
08-14-2009, 08:42 AM
And CAR magazine test drive for better comparison
Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni CAR review
Because the Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 isn't quite enough for everyone, there's now a less-is-more version. With no front driveshaft and all the power from the 5.2-litre V10 going to the rear wheels, this is the limited edition LP550-2 Valentino Balboni, and a chance to help shift a few more cars, deflect attention from the new Ferrari 458 Italia, and finally silence those whingers who claim that Lambos aren’t real drivers cars. Wonder how many have actually driven one?
So what’s the Balboni bit about in the Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni name?
Valentino Balboni is Lamborghini’s recently retired test driver, a man who worked under Ferrucio Lamborghini himself when the company was still knocking out Miuras. Just 250 units of this special Gallardo will be made to honour Balboni’s 41 year association with the firm. And since much of his time was spent wrestling with lairy rear-drive supercars, Balboni the car fittingly does without the standard Gallardo’s front differential and driveshafts.
That’s not all it does without, judging by the name. Where did the 10bhp go?
Ditching the front shaft and diff has cut the weight 30kg to 1380kg, although that’s without fluids – say 1480kg measured the conventional way. That means that the rear-driver still delivers a better power to weight ratio even with 543bhp (550ps) instead of 552bhp. But why reduce it at all? Because Lamborghini doesn’t want the rear driver overshadowing the four-wheel drive car.
And does it?
On paper, no. Zero to 62mph takes 3.9sec, two tenths longer because of the inferior traction and it suffers the ignominy of failing to crack 200mph thanks to the power reduction. Oh, the shame!
Forget all that and remember the power-to-weight ratio. Where it counts, on the road, the Balboni is every bit as rapid as the 560, whatever the performance figures and oddly muted exhaust note suggests. Compared with the Murcielago’s V12, the direct-injection V10 is buttery smooth and was perfectly matched in our test car to an old fashioned six-speed manual gearbox. Don’t be intimidated by the open metal gate – the change is slick and the clutch no heavier than a family car’s. You can still pay extra for the e-gear semi-auto if you wish.
Bet it’s a real handful.
Far from it. You’d struggle to get yourself in trouble on the road, at least in the dry. The traction available from the new compound Pirelli P Zeros is astonishing and you’ll rarely even trouble the traction control. In fact, on the road there just isn’t the room to get past the initial understeer and set the tail free. On the circuit, it’s a different story and you can slide the Balboni around easily. Sounds scary but isn’t; this is a very sweetly balanced car.
And back on the road, the fact that you can’t drift it like an M3 on every single roundabout doesn’t matter at all. You’ll be too taken by the more feelsome, fluid-feeling steering and much more aggressive turn-in to care. There’s no doubt that the Balboni is a far more involving drive than the regular Gallardo. You have to put more in, but the rewards are ample.
So it’s got less power and less hardware? Presumably it costs less.
Stop being so logical - the Balboni costs £163,245, nearly £20k more than LP560-4. You do get the clear engine lid as standard as well as the wooden-feeling carbon ceramic brakes (both optional on the normal Gallardo), Superleggera wheels and striping for the upholstery and exterior paintwork. But tick the e-gear box and you’re up to Ferrari Scuderia money, and that’s a bit of a worry, as is the arrival of the Ferrari 458 Italia later this year.
Verdict
The Balboni is a brilliant supercar, the best Gallardo yet and it would be a terrible shame if Lamborghini restricted it to a 250 car run.
But it’s expensive in its current guise, the brake feel still isn’t right and there’s a brand spanking new Ferrari just around the corner. Ditch the ceramics, pitch it at £5k less than the standard Gallardo though, and we could have a deal.
Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni CAR review | Road Testing Reviews | Car Magazine Online
Because the Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 isn't quite enough for everyone, there's now a less-is-more version. With no front driveshaft and all the power from the 5.2-litre V10 going to the rear wheels, this is the limited edition LP550-2 Valentino Balboni, and a chance to help shift a few more cars, deflect attention from the new Ferrari 458 Italia, and finally silence those whingers who claim that Lambos aren’t real drivers cars. Wonder how many have actually driven one?
So what’s the Balboni bit about in the Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni name?
Valentino Balboni is Lamborghini’s recently retired test driver, a man who worked under Ferrucio Lamborghini himself when the company was still knocking out Miuras. Just 250 units of this special Gallardo will be made to honour Balboni’s 41 year association with the firm. And since much of his time was spent wrestling with lairy rear-drive supercars, Balboni the car fittingly does without the standard Gallardo’s front differential and driveshafts.
That’s not all it does without, judging by the name. Where did the 10bhp go?
Ditching the front shaft and diff has cut the weight 30kg to 1380kg, although that’s without fluids – say 1480kg measured the conventional way. That means that the rear-driver still delivers a better power to weight ratio even with 543bhp (550ps) instead of 552bhp. But why reduce it at all? Because Lamborghini doesn’t want the rear driver overshadowing the four-wheel drive car.
And does it?
On paper, no. Zero to 62mph takes 3.9sec, two tenths longer because of the inferior traction and it suffers the ignominy of failing to crack 200mph thanks to the power reduction. Oh, the shame!
Forget all that and remember the power-to-weight ratio. Where it counts, on the road, the Balboni is every bit as rapid as the 560, whatever the performance figures and oddly muted exhaust note suggests. Compared with the Murcielago’s V12, the direct-injection V10 is buttery smooth and was perfectly matched in our test car to an old fashioned six-speed manual gearbox. Don’t be intimidated by the open metal gate – the change is slick and the clutch no heavier than a family car’s. You can still pay extra for the e-gear semi-auto if you wish.
Bet it’s a real handful.
Far from it. You’d struggle to get yourself in trouble on the road, at least in the dry. The traction available from the new compound Pirelli P Zeros is astonishing and you’ll rarely even trouble the traction control. In fact, on the road there just isn’t the room to get past the initial understeer and set the tail free. On the circuit, it’s a different story and you can slide the Balboni around easily. Sounds scary but isn’t; this is a very sweetly balanced car.
And back on the road, the fact that you can’t drift it like an M3 on every single roundabout doesn’t matter at all. You’ll be too taken by the more feelsome, fluid-feeling steering and much more aggressive turn-in to care. There’s no doubt that the Balboni is a far more involving drive than the regular Gallardo. You have to put more in, but the rewards are ample.
So it’s got less power and less hardware? Presumably it costs less.
Stop being so logical - the Balboni costs £163,245, nearly £20k more than LP560-4. You do get the clear engine lid as standard as well as the wooden-feeling carbon ceramic brakes (both optional on the normal Gallardo), Superleggera wheels and striping for the upholstery and exterior paintwork. But tick the e-gear box and you’re up to Ferrari Scuderia money, and that’s a bit of a worry, as is the arrival of the Ferrari 458 Italia later this year.
Verdict
The Balboni is a brilliant supercar, the best Gallardo yet and it would be a terrible shame if Lamborghini restricted it to a 250 car run.
But it’s expensive in its current guise, the brake feel still isn’t right and there’s a brand spanking new Ferrari just around the corner. Ditch the ceramics, pitch it at £5k less than the standard Gallardo though, and we could have a deal.
Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni CAR review | Road Testing Reviews | Car Magazine Online
#8
08-14-2009, 11:00 AM
I need pos rep like Hulkamania NOW!
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Madison Wisconsin
Posts: 3,349
Great thread. Funny that Lambo, Ferrari and Porsche can put less equip on a car, make it faster and then charge more. My 2007 RS included.
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