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Latest ultra-light Lamborghini only costs around $32,000

Lamborghini, not finished celebrating its 50th anniversary with special models like the Veneno, has subtracted two wheels for the next stage of the party. The BMC Lamborghini 50th Anniversary Edition Impec is the second go-round of the collaboration between Swiss bicycle maker BMC and the Italian carmaker, both based on linking the carbon-fiber framed Impec to the carbon-fiber bodied Aventador.
Last year's run-of-30 Impecs has become this year's run of 50, each one built to order, and each costing 25,000 euros (about $32,000 US). BMC's special framebuilding technique is graced by a paint job unique to the model, Italian components and the same leather used in that taurean coupe. As with the car, you can order it at your local Lamborghini dealer and take delivery there.
If you're keen, the press release below can tell you what it will take to throw a leg over.

Lamborghini Sian's supercapacitor hybrid system explained by company's CTO

"We are a game-changer and a provocateur," Lamborghini's CTO, Maurizio Reggiani told Engadget. The automaker has a long history of making waves with traffic-stopping designs and more recently, innovative tech. At last week's Frankfurt Motor Show, the Italian company unveiled its Sian hybrid supercar. But it ditched the traditional battery pack in favor of a supercapacitor to power an electric motor, which is exactly what you would expect from the Italian company. Typically a hybrid uses a lithium-ion battery pack to store energy. Then when needed, it transfers an electrical current to a motor (or motors) to either help the gas-powered engine or take over propulsion entirely. It's a recipe that has successfully improved gas mileage and sold over six million examples of the Toyota Prius, not to mention countless other hybrids. "It's too easy to follow," Reggiani said. "If you want to move for the first time in electrification you must guarantee that the implementation will not destroy the DNA of a car and brand." With that in mind, the automaker went with a supercapacitor instead of a battery. According to Reggiani, the supercapacitor offers up three times the power of a battery pack from the same weight and packaging. Plus, it stores and discharges energy much quicker. The spent power can be fully regenerated very quickly during normal braking. Reggiani explained that this could be particularly useful while cornering. Going into a corner, the driver applies the brakes and replenishes any spent energy. Then, as the driver accelerates out of the corner, all the available power is there for acceleration. Then as the driver brakes for the next curve, the process starts all over again. Plus, the supercapacitor doesn't have to cool down like traditional battery, it's just ready to go at all times -- which is exactly what Lamborghini owners want. The output of the 48-volt motor installed into the gearbox is 34 horsepower which brings the total power output of the V12 Sian to 819 horsepower. While 34 horsepower doesn't seem like much, it means the vehicle can do zero to 62 miles per hour in under 2.8 seconds. That's Tesla Model S Performance and Porsche Taycan levels of fast. But there are other benefits. The electric motor reduces the torque hits of the gears shifting. You know those momentary losses -- then explosions of power -- you feel in the car as it speeds up, that's the vehicle going through its gears.

A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]

Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.