1999 Replica Lamborghini Diablo Roadster Body By Naerc on 2040-cars

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Previewing the 2014 Paris Motor Show

Don't let the shiny objects detract from the serious side of the show. Sales, fuel economy and regulations are part of the conversation.
The Paris Motor Show is one of the glitziest events on the automotive calendar. Yes, it helps that it's in the City of Light, but the glamorous surroundings only enhance the spectacular wares that automakers bring to the show. This is where Europeans debut their best new cars for the coming year, both as eye-catching concepts and in production trim.

Lamborghini beats the odds, sets delivery record in 2021

Lamborghini is one of the luxury carmakers that reported exceptionally strong sales in 2021 in spite of an ongoing global pandemic and a crippling chip shortage. Like Rolls-Royce and sister company Bentley, the Italian firm beat the odds by setting an all-time delivery record. Annual deliveries totaled 8,405 units, an increase of 13% over 2020. Lamborghini's biggest market remains the United States, where deliveries jumped by 11% to 2,472 units in 2021. Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macao are lumped into second place, and deliveries there skyrocketed by 55% to 935 sales. Germany and, somewhat surprisingly, the United Kingdom are in third and fourth place, respectively. Deliveries in Germany rose by 16% to 706 and in England by 9% to 564. Italy, where regulations have historically (and ironically) been hostile to cars with large-displacement engines, likes Lamborghini's breed of bulls as well: 359 deliveries were recorded in 2021, a 3% climb. It shouldn't surprise anyone to learn that the Urus was the best-selling Lamborghini in 2021. The company delivered 5,021 examples, so the SUV accounted for over half of the brand's sales. Second place on the podium is occupied by the Huracan, with 2,586 deliveries, followed by the Aventador, with 798 delivered units. While these numbers might sound insignificant in the grand scheme of things, putting them into context tells a different story. Lamborghini remains small, but it used to be a lot smaller: It built precisely 1,999 examples of the Countach during a production run that stretched 17 years. It made more units of the Aventador (pictured) in 2021 than of the Miura between 1966 and 1973. Another interesting point is that Lamborghini's total for 2021 seemingly only includes delivered units. The company left out the cars it sold but hasn't delivered yet, like the 112 planned units of the born-again Countach. The coupe was sold out before it was shown to the public. Lamborghini hopes to keep the momentum going, and company boss Stephan Winkelmann revealed that almost all of 2022's production capacity is already spoken for. The company also plans to unveil four new cars in 2022, including the Aventador's mysterious successor. Related video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

We visit the Lamborghini Museum at company HQ in Sant'Agata

Last week, Lamborghini invited us to stop by its Sant'Agata Bolognese headquarters to have a look around the factory and pick up a few technical tidbits about its new Huracán LP 610-4. It won't surprise you to learn this, but Lambo's foyer is pretty rad.
Rather than front its offices and factory with a gift shop and a reception desk, Lamborghini puts its amazing heritage on full display by offering up the corporate museum as a first impression to visitors. We had coffee in the morning and lunch after the press conference in this space, with stunning Italian concept cars and production models serving as an impressive backdrop to it all. Not wanting to miss the opportunity to share the Lamborghini collection with exotic-car crazed Autoblog readers (you know who you are), we did our best to capture everything we saw in the gallery here.
With some variation, the museum's two floors are separated by vintage: older models downstairs and newer up. When you walk through the front door, you're flanked by two of the coolest Lamborghinis in the marque's impressive history: a 350 GT to the left and a perfectly green Countach LP 400 on the right. Perhaps our favorite car in the whole joint, the Countach's Bertone body is still almost impossible to believe. Up close, we're reminded how design-driven this car is; the seats are so far inboard from the scissor doors that it's difficult to imagine that engineers ever agreed that the shape was a feasible one for production or actual driving.