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Lamborghini Hurac?n configurator is ready for your Italian fantasies

The Lamborghini Huracán might be one of the most anticipated cars to come out of Sant'Agata since the launch of its predecessor, the Gallardo. While we're stuck waiting to drive the V10-powered, all-wheel-drive Huracán, we can at least play around with the all-new configurator, which has just gone live.
Now, in terms of other online builders, the Huracán's is rather light. Tweakable features are limited to exterior and interior colors, wheel designs, caliper colors and a few other smaller items. There are also no prices listed, although this is hardly unusual for exotic configurators (Aston Martin, Bentley, Ferrari and Rolls-Royce all leave pricing info off their configurators).
Despite being rather low on stuff to do, designing one's personalized Lamborghini will always remain a pleasant means of whiling away a slow day at work. Hop over to Lamborghini's website and have a look.

Lamborghini's path to the future is paved with forged composites

As far back as 1983, Lamborghini has been researching carbon fiber for automotive use. The automaker felt confident enough in its ability to work with the high-tech material in 1985 that a team led by Maurizio Reggiani, now the Lamborghini Board Member in charge of Research and Development, crafted a revolutionary Countach with a chassis made almost entirely of hand-laid carbon fiber. The result was spectacular in that the car's chassis weighed about half of its all-metal counterpart. It turned out that first foray into carbon fiber was just as spectacular when it was finally tested for crashworthiness, but in a completely different way. Catastrophic would be an appropriate word, according to Paolo Feraboli, who now leads Lambo's brand-new Advanced Composite Structures Laboratory in Seattle, Washington. Proving how far Lamborghini has come since that ill-fated carbon-fiber Countach Evoluzione, Feraboli told us during the ACSL's grand opening that today's Aventador, which boasts a high-tech carbon chassis, aced its very first crash test in 2009. Chalk that success up to high-tech computer modeling and the practical application of lessons learned over several decades of trial and error. The dull red monocoque of that crashed Aventador now hangs on the wall at the ACSL like a functional piece of art, a reminder of Lamborghini's cutting-edge milestones of the past. Lamborghini's future will be hewn from what the company calls forged composites. First seen on the stunning Sesto Elemento Concept from the 2010 Paris Motor Show, the patented carbon-forging process forgoes hand-laid sheets, injected resins, and high-heat autoclaves. Instead, wads of randomly oriented carbon fibers that sort of resemble the kind of dough you'd use to make pasta undergo a three-minute press inside a mold. The resulting parts are just as strong as other carbon-fiber bits, but can be mass-produced at a fraction of the cost. While it's true that cost is often a secondary consideration for high-end supercars, it's still relevant. By reducing the cost and increasing the scale of composite pieces, Lamborghini can then afford to spend more money on other parts of the car. It's not just body panels and chassis components that Lamborghini thinks it can build using forged composite technology. The Sesto Elemento featured forged-composite suspension control arms that haven't yet made it into production, but probably will soon.

Lamborghini struggles to cap its own production to maintain brand exclusivity

Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Bentleys, and so on demand high prices, and that's not just because you’re buying incredible performance, technology and luxury. YouÂ’re also buying exclusivity. Recently, however, Wall Street and shareholders have been pressuring supercar makers to produce more cars and yield more profits. The problem is that higher production volume compromises exclusivity and dilutes the brand. So while LamborghiniÂ’s shareholders want the company to produce more cars, executives are seeking to impose limits and cap production. "We must not go on growing forever. We now have to consolidate these results and preserve exclusivity," Lamborghini CEO Stefano Domenicali told reporters at an event inaugurating the companyÂ’s newest paint and body shop at the SantÂ’Agata Bolognese plant in Italy. The execs are having limited success, however, as the company announced that it plans to sell more than 8,000 cars this year, which is “the right dimension of our company with our current product portfolio,” Domenicali said. A run of 8,000 cars would be an increase of 39 percent from 2018's total of 5,750 new Lambos. It has been a strong decade for Lamborghini; a mere 1,302 vehicles were sold back in 2010. However, that goal of 8,000 could swell to around 10,000 cars, depending on whether the company adds another model to its small lineup. Such a case would have to be deliberated among shareholders. Lamborghini saw considerable growth in the first quarter of this year, likely attributed to the launch of its Urus SUV. So far, analysts are forecasting an increase in revenue to around 1.7 billion euros, or $1.92 billion USD, up from 1.42 billion euros or $1.6 billion USD in 2018, said Chief Financial Officer Paolo Poma. At the same event, Lamborghini confirmed that an electric supercar is not in its future at this time as “customers are currently not interested,” Poma said. However, Lamborghini is indeed seeking to add hybrid vehicles to its lineup by 2025, as itÂ’s pressured to lower CO2 emissions and meet future mandates. The Urus is expected to be one of the cars receiving a hybrid powertrain, as it is not planned to get a V10 or V12 engine.