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Lamborghini gets barbecued at St. Louis gas station

Life is good when you're behind the wheel of a bright blue Lamborghini Huracan. Or at least it is up until the moment a forgetful minivan driver drives off with the fuel filler nozzle still attached. The result, at a gas station in St. Louis, was a spray of fuel, spilled directly onto the Lamborghini's engine bay, which instantly ignited and turned the supercar into a fireball. As reported by the Riverfront Times, the blue Huracan was actually one of two Lamborghinis, the other being an orange Gallardo, that had stopped to refuel. This video shows the exact moment when the minivan driver pulls away and the fuel hose separates from the pump. Careful if you're watching this at work, or have kiddies present, because some of the language is, well, also incendiary. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Then again, if you're in the middle of seeing gallons of fuel being sprayed directly onto a supercar's hot-running V10 engine, we doubt you'd wax poetic about the experience. And due credit to the Riverfront Times for its headline proclaiming "Incredible Dumbass Turns Lamborghini into Fireball at St. Louis Gas Station." It might not earn a Pulitzer, but kudos for nailing the story in one line, folks. Apparently and, somewhat amazingly, no one was reported hurt in the ensuing fire. The Lamborghini is definitely a total writeoff, but amazingly, the accompanying red Performante was just covered in ash. And according to this same Facebook post, the minivan driver was quickly found and admitted to being the culprit. Update: A previous version of this post incorrectly identified the blue Lamborghini Huracan as a Gallardo. The text has been corrected. Additional photos and video have also been embedded. Related Video: Weird Car News Lamborghini Minivan/Van supercar wreck gallardo

Lamborghini exploring more elegant designs

Ferrari's front-engined V12s and mid-engined V8s have taken turns monopolizing the brand's perception; the 550 Maranello was probably the last front-engined V12 to be first-to-mind, now the 458 Italia leads the family. Not so at Lamborghini, where a mid-engined V12 has been the go-to and centerpiece since the extraterrestrial Countach landed, and it still is no matter how much the Huracan outsells the Aventador. That shape, those doors, that engine – they're the franchise. That doesn't mean Lamborghini isn't trying new things. The Asterion LPI 910-4 concept from last year's Paris Motor Show was more than the marque's first draft of a hybrid, it was an exploration of a different avenue in design. According to design chief Filippo Perini, "We need to understand if we can open another window in our future to be not so extreme but also a little bit more politically correct and elegant." The Asterion points at elegance and "a daily use of the car" with more room inside, a slimmer rocker panel and sill for easier entry, and a raised hip point in the seats for a higher driving position. Perini said that from the driver's seat, "You can see the color of the car. That is something unknown in our very extreme designs." Extreme Lamborghinis aren't going away, however – note that Perini spoke of opening "another window" of design. The goal, he said, "is to understand if [its] design language will be appreciated by a different kind of customer." We can't imagine why not, and we hope we get more news about the "hyper cruiser" GT outside of magazine articles and auto show grandstanding. If it were up to us, Lamborghini would open that window all the way.

The Lamborghini Terzo Millennio is a brutally fantastic EV supercar concept

Lamborghini isn't known for bowing to convention. Ever since Ferruccio told Enzo Ferrari where he could stick his temperamental cars, and decided to build his own, it's been going its own way. This car, the Terzo Millennio ("third millenium"), built in collaboration with MIT, is very much a Lamborghini approach to the EV performance car. To begin with, it is obviously nothing else but a Lamborghini. Wild concept car touches aside, it's as wedgy and mean as anything to come out of Sant'Agata (and definitely anything to come out of Cambridge, MA!). There's some advanced tech here, too, as you might imagine with MIT's involvement. The most notable is the supercapacitor energy storage technology. Supercapacitors aren't ready for primetime yet, being very expensive and not quite as energy dense, although currently they're used in a few niche automotive applications. But MIT and Lamborghini want to produce one that'll work more like a main battery, but with greater ability to recharge and discharge quickly. That's ideal for brutal, explosive acceleration. If Lamborghini and MIT can make a breakthrough here, it'd let the decidedly conventional Lamborghinis of today (naturally aspirated, non-electrified) take a leap into the future on Lamborghini's own terms. The company is also exploring carbon composite batteries utilizing nanotechnology, which the company claims would reduce weight and increase the discharge capacity of the batteries. So, it seems, the Terzo Millennio might combine the two power storage technologies into the same drivetrain. Of course, like most modern Lamborghinis there's all-wheel drive, although it's in-wheel electric motor-based rather than the conventional mechanical type. It'd be easy enough to leave off the front motors for a Performante variant, perhaps. Or maybe in-wheel electric motors become the norm in the future. It's too early to tell; for now, this concept is AWD. The body is carbon fiber, and this concept previews some technology that can detect degradation in the carbon fiber early and potentially repair it with something called "nano-channels" utilizing a form of the technology that allows carbon composite materials to store energy. This technology deserves more explanation than we have room for here, and we'll get a deep dive on it as soon as we can. Lastly, Lamborghini wants a vehicle like the Terzo Millennio to sound like a Lamborghini. That won't be easy, since there's no V12 or V10 to be found.