Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder 2007 on 2040-cars

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Watch an Aventador, Viper and LFA play the songs of their people

Our friends at Road & Track recently stopped by Cars and Coffee in Irvine, California, with the 2013 SRT Viper and found themselves a place to park between a Lamborghini Aventador and a Lexus LFA. Those machines might as well be the three musketeers of ludicrous exhaust notes, and rather than keep those 24 raging cylinders muffled, R&T set about conducting an orchestra of internal combustion. On seeing these three lined up, we were more than prepared to call the Viper victorious when it came to tickling our ear drums, but the latest domestic V10 sounds down right civilized in this company.
If we're picking favorites, we have to say the LFA takes the cake. There's something about the noise of a street-legal V10 that can wrap it's tachometer all the way to 9,000 rpm that turns our knees to quivering dollops of jelly. Check out the clip below for a listen. We shouldn't need to tell you to get frisky with the volume.

Man hired to remove Confederate monuments finds Lambo burned

A contractor in Louisiana is discovering that no good deed goes unpunished. After David Mahler, the owner of H&O Investments, was hired by the city of New Orleans to remove monuments to the rebellious Confederate States of America, he was subjected to death threats. Then his Lamborghini was set on fire. What's bizarre here is the sequence of events. The death threats started rolling in after Mahler was announced as the city's contractor to remove monuments to Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee, PGT Beauregard, and Confederate States of America President Jefferson Davis. Then the threatening phone calls started rolling in, New Orleans NBC affiliate WDSU reports. Mahler then pulled his company out of the job, but that didn't stop the torching of the new Huracan. A Baton Rouge Fire Department investigation into the fire at the H&O Investments office is still in progress, WDSU reports, but when Mahler's attorney calls the circumstances "extremely suspicious," it's not an unreasonable statement. The car was utterly unrecognizable after the fire. You can make out the tires and seat frames, and a lump of melted metal where the engine used to be, but that's about all that's left of Sant'Agata's new entry-level model. It's just another victim in a war that most sane people understand ended over 150 years ago. Check out WDSU's report at the top of the page for before and after images of the poor Huracan.

Lamborghini still working on SUV, no decision yet

If Lamborghini adds another model to round out its supercar portfolio, it will be a sport utility vehicle, CEO Stephan Winkelmann said. "We are working on it, but there is no decision taken," he told Autoblog in an interview in April. The Italian automaker currently has the V12-powered Aventador and V10-powered Huracan in its lineup. Both are two-seat supercars that cater to a niche of sporting-minded enthusiasts. Lamborghini has flirted with several kinds of vehicles in recent years that could add to its volume and customer base, including the hybrid Asterion revealed at the Paris Motor Show last year, and the Estoque sedan that debuted in Paris in 2008. It also showed the Urus SUV prototype at the Beijing Motor Show in 2012. Seemingly a sure thing three years ago – the Urus even had sales projections of 3,000 per year – the project's future has remained uncertain to enthusiasts. "If we do a third model, then it's better to have the SUV as this is a growing segment, a more emotional segment, a segment which is very well-distributed in terms of volume all over the planet," Winkelmann said. And therefore this is a car which is more likely." While Lamborghini has focused on building high-powered, carbon-fiber intense supercars lately, it has also produced iconic grand tourers, like the Espada and 350GT. And of course, it once made an SUV, the LM002, from 1986-1993. The potential new SUV, however, would be different than the Rambo Lambo. The Urus had a contemporary design – more Porsche Macan or Cayenne than military grade – and it would appeal to Lamborghini owners that also have an SUV in their garage. It would also add significant volume for the company, which delivered 2,530 cars in 2014. The SUV offers Lamborghini a logical platform for a hybrid system. "Due to packaging, due to the weight of the entire vehicle, it's more likely that the hybridization is getting in place," Winkelmann said. "It's less a car which is about absolute performance. So this could be an opportunity." Put it all together and it seems likely a hybrid SUV is in Lamborghini's future. We're just not sure when. Related Video: