2015 Lamborghini Huracan on 2040-cars

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Lamborghini and Bentley rack up record sales in 2022

Sister companies Lamborghini and Bentley independently announced that they set a sales record in 2022. Both firms posted a big increase in deliveries, and their announcement comes shortly after Bugatti and Rolls-Royce released their own record-breaking 2022 sales figures. Lamborghini delivered 9,233 cars in 2022, an increase of 10% over 2021 (which was a record year as well). Its best-selling model is the Urus, which accounted for 5,367 deliveries (a 7% increase over 2022). That's not surprising; SUVs sell well. What's rather stunning is that Huracan deliveries soared by 20% to 3,113 examples in 2022. Finally, Lamborghini delivered the last 753 examples of the Aventador. Geographically, the United States remains Lamborghini's biggest market; the company delivered 2,721 cars there in 2022 (an increase of 10% over 2021). China takes second place with 1,018 deliveries (up 9%) followed by Germany (808 cars; up 14%), the United Kingdom (650 cars; up by 15%), and Japan (546 cars; up 22%). All told, deliveries in the EMEA region(Europe, Middle East and Africa) jumped by 7% to 3,484 cars. The company's outlook for 2023 is bright. It will notably unveil the Aventador's hotly-anticipated successor, and the yet-unnamed model will stand out as its first series-produced hybrid model. Its historic factory in Sant'Agata Bolognese, Italy, will keep busy as well. "We now have the opportunity to focus on our next objectives also thanks to an 18-month waiting list," said company boss Stephan Winkelmann. While it's too early to tell if 2023 will be another record year for Lamborghini, executives stress that they want to keep the company's growth in check. The aim isn't to rival, say, BMW in terms of volume. "The idea will always be to have one car less than demand," Andrea Baldi, the head of the Americas region for Lamborghini, told Autoblog in 2022. "We will never become unexclusive. That is a promise." Bentley is celebrating for many of the same reasons: It sold 15,174 cars in 2022, an increase of 4% over 2021 and its first annual result above the 15,000-unit mark. Here again, there are some interesting surprises hidden in the numbers. Its best-seller was the Bentayga, it represented 42% of the firm's sales, and 2022 was the big SUV's most popular year — that's an impressive feat for a car released in 2015. The Continental GT range represented 30% of sales and the Speed variant accounted for 31% of those. The Flying Spur represented the remaining 28%.

Get a load of these crazy European Nimrods

I've been attending the Geneva Motor Show for the better part of a decade, and it's become my favorite stop on the entire show circuit, in large part because of all the exotic automakers, coachbuilders and green startups. I also love the Palexpo's consistently mind-bending displays of tuners, who typically work exclusively on six-figure automobiles. Some offer subtle improvements and personalization programs, but most seem hellbent on being more outlandish and bizarre than the next, a room full of millionaire class clowns. More often than not, I spy something and think to myself "What kind of Nimrod would do that to a perfectly good ____ ?" This year, that rhetorical question is in fact a self-answering one.
The jokes, they write themselves.
But seriously, if you're wondering who would take a perfectly lovely Ferrari 458 Italia or a Lamborghini Aventador and affix a wild body kit of dubious aerodynamic and aesthetic merit at great extra cost (both to the car's MSRP and to its assuredly grenaded resale value), the answer could very well be Nimrod Elite Tuning, a newer high-end restyling house out of Slovakia. That last locational tidbit might also explain the company's unusual name, which is likely a nod to a mighty Biblical hunter (descendant of Ham and a king of Shinar, Nimrod is mentioned in Genesis and Chronicles) and not meant to be taken as a synonym for "idiot" or "moron."

Lamborghini says it could build the Sterrato rally car at a profit

Automobile spent an hour working out the Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato concept at the Volkswagen Group's Nardo test track. Naturally, the question of a production version came up. Maurizio Reggiani, Lamborghini's chief technical officer, told the magazine a customer version would be possible, only because "the provisional business case suggests that we can build this car at a profit." And the secret to making money on the car would be 3D printing. The composition of the Sterrato is 96 percent bone-stock Huracan EVO. Same naturally aspirated 5.2-liter V10 with 631 horsepower and 442 pound-feet of torque, same all-wheel drive, four-wheel steering and torque vectoring, same 20-inch wheels. The exterior departures come in the handling software retuned for dirt and loose surfaces, a 1.85-inch lift, fender flares and a one-inch wider track, off-road tires backed by mud guards, aluminum plates front and rear. and those auxiliary LED lights. The cabin gets a titanium roll cage and five-point racing harnesses. Perhaps save for the software, the edits are cosmetic add-ons, and Reggiani said Lamborghini can fabricate "all restyled or new body panels, claddings, ducts, and splitters on 3D printers." The carmaker developed a kind of plastic especially for the cause, "a lightweight synthetic material which is in its final shape bolted or screwed onto the finished body." The Automobile piece said Lamborghini would need to assess the material's durability, and perhaps sort out a different solution for the "armadillo rear-window cover that messes up what view there is." There would also be the "jackhammer noise level" to attend to. Otherwise, the mag's assessment is that the Sterrato is "even more playful than its brethren, and the mere prospect of enjoying a long cold winter in a hard-core sports car is bound to make quite a few Lambophiles reach for their checkbooks." The case for the car is presented as the Sterrato forming one in a line of special edition Huracans that will maintain interest in the model until the replacement arrives in 2023 or 2024. Next year we'd get the hardcore Huracan STO, or Super Trofeo Omologato. A potential Sterrato could show in 2021, limited to between 500 and 1,000 units, sold for about $271,000 each. That's about $9,000 more than the 2020 Huracan EVO AWD coupe. A Huracan hybrid would be follow in 2022, a Huracan Superveloce providing the model's backstop before the successor.