Gallardo test LP560 / 4 vs. Corvette Z06 - AUTOBILD 22/2008 -
Italo-Western with 1000 hp
Lamborghini is shooting sharp: Now comes the new Gallardo with 560 hp. This asphalt cowboy aims directly to the 512 horsepower Corvette Z06. AUTO BILD has invited both in the United States to a duel. Who is drawing faster?
By Jan Horn
We called them "spaghetti Western" - the shrill, always after similar pattern feature films shot by Sergio Leone and Co. The heroes: lonely riders with incomprehensible quickly drawing hand. The subject matter: They are all behind her dirty dollars. The music: spectacular choir to a large orchestra. The end almost always a furious showdown in the desert. You can hardly understand why this fascinating genre went extinct. If it was time for a revival, directed this time by us, our main performers for the thrilling continuation 2008: The new Lamborghini Gallardo LP560 / 4 Figures: New built V10 engine with 560 hp, 3.7 second shooting of the Italian on 100kmh. The evil adversary mimes an expert in American V8 dramaturgy: The powerful 512 horsepower from the Chevrolet Corvette Z06. The Americans responded only an eyelashes slower, needs two-tenths longer till the speedometer pointer caught the 100.
The Lamborghini LP560 / 4 is the perfect driving machine
But despite similar dangerously shot efficency of the two - at first glance it is clear that this is completely different characters each target. The wide and muscular, with a long hood and rear crispy typically proportioned, there is a Corvette strained athlete. Flat, compact, to the rearmost Body curve aerodynamically sophisticated, the Lamborghini marked the perfect driving machine. Italian filigree elegance is against massive presence. What is beautiful? A matter of taste. So who moves faster. The Gallardo helps the modern Arsenal of a Supersportathlete. Its 5.2-liter V10 engine with gasoline direct injection and 40 valves glaring is doing it about speed. Although the ten-cylinder bites from 1500rpm on - from 4500 tours on it reloads. Then open felt - and heard - power locks and the Lambo does not stop in to fire until the tachometer needle is on the 8000-mark.
Shift? Pah, Gallardo pilots don't struggle to do it the (sinful expensive) E-Drive gearboxes on Fingertip paddles behind the steering wheel - of course, fast (120 milliseconds). At the push of a button daily-driver like it happens automatically - but that fits the Lambo as Clint Eastwood in the Lindenstra?e [german soap opera]. No need to. Either way, the roar of brutal sound is jacking up pace and even 200 km/h in focus (11.8 seconds) breathtaking. But despite the Corvette makes less noise hectic subjective even more pressure. Because the thundering V8 torque is a giant in Displacement rush. His 643 Newton metres shake the 7.2-litre eight-cylinder apparently from idle. But the brutal cubic power, the drive wheels to their limits. Against the traction-strong four-wheel system of the Gallardo, the rear wheel drive technology of the American is behind. In the lower gears, the electronics of the Corvette rein in the slip inexorably - but the compared to the Italian about 80 kilograms lighter U.S. car theoretically has the stuff to counter hold.
For variable distributed to the four-wheel-drive Lamborghini - under normal circumstances, the power of a Visco clutch to 70 percent to the rear - there is a slightly rear-strong weight distribution. This Lambo is thanks to a package of sensitive steering and firmer chassis management accurately conduct. The bottom line is this: zero traction problems, total control enormously precise driving behavior - while amazingly great suspension comfort. Fascinating - but not very spectacular and somehow synthetically. The fact that the Corvette is very different. It demands. Not the casual cruising. But under fire. Increase the speed curve, you have to concentrate more than the Gallardo, grip with a heart, while driving and switching on the move. The Z06 lets work - and works itself. What unimpresses the enormous torsion-resistant, with welded aluminum profiles mounted Lamborghini, the not-so-stiff-built Corvette can only cope with a light shudder.
But rather a slight concussion in a car, as the great quake in the price. And here the Corvette is very large. Because with 88,150 euros, the Ami, only half of the Italian price. He acts according to the classical Western motto: For a fistful of dollars more ...
