2013 Lamborghini Gallardo Lp550-2 Spyder on 2040-cars

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Volkswagen breaks 40-year-old sales record in 2012

The last time Volkswagen moved this many vehicles in America in one year, Richard Nixon was still a President in good standing, Let It Be was a radio hit and each car wearing the VW badge boasted an air-cooled engine. That's right, with a grand total of 580,286 vehicles sold in the US last year, the VW Group has broken its own four-decades-old sales record by 2,899 vehicles.
Of that 580k total sold, 438k were Volkswagens and 139k were Audi products - increases of 35.1 percent and 18.5 percent, respectively, in year-over-year sales. The ultra-premium members of the VW group also fared well; Bentley delivered 2,315 vehicles for a 23.3-precent increase, and Lamborghini delivered 520 units for a 52.9-percent jump. Bugatti, we're told is "right on track."
Jetta (pictured) sales paced the marque with 170k models sold, and Passat also finished very strong with sales of 117k total. Tiguan also racked up its best year on file, with 31,731 models shifted.

Lamborghini Huracan is officially sold out through end of production

The Lamborghini Gallardo managed a trick no V8-powered Lamborghini pulled off before, going back to the 1973 Urraco: Act as a thoroughly worthy undercard to the V12 main event. Perhaps the two extra cylinders made the difference, the Italian automaker selling 14,022 examples during the Gallardo's 10 years on sale. That was a massive number, especially when the automaker was selling closer to 1,000 cars per year than the 9,233 it sold last year. The Huracan proved an even sweeter package, selling 14,022 units in just five years. With more than 20,000 on the roads worldwide, the V10 storm is about to come to an end. A single sentence in Lamborghini's summary of Q1 financial performance reveals the V10 is "sold out till the end of production." The results summary doesn't specify the date the last Huracan rumbles off the line. We know it will happen sometime next year, the automaker's production almost entirely accounted for through the end of 2024. Whatever follows the Huracan will make its debut later this year, and somehow, Lamborghini has managed to keep the powertrain secret. It's agreed that the chassis will be a modified version of the platform created for the V12 hybrid flagship Revuelto. Car magazine says the Revuelto's "monofuselage" will be reworked with aluminum to lower the price. As recently as last November, Auto Express wrote about Lamborghini technical officer Rouven Mohr saying, "[the Huracan successor is] not a range-oriented hybrid and there will be no kind of downsizing," the mag saying Mohr conveyed the sentiment "that it’s against LamborghiniÂ’s philosophy to reduce the engine size and then 'compensate' with electrification as some rivals have done."  A twin-turbo hybrid V8 has come up more recently, this engine being of Lamborghini's design. With the company longer having a corporate sibling in the Volkswagen Group stable to share V10 hybrid costs and upkeep with, a hybrid V8 makes much more sense. The Group is awash in V8s and will be using hybridized versions in models from several brands. The scuttlebutt on this engine alleges about 850 horsepower of total output, turbos that don't spool up until 7,000 rpm, and a 10,000-rpm redline. And we already know it's going to sell like hotcakes — or crespolini, rather.  Related: 2023 Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato First Drive: Ridiculous obliteration of boundaries Related video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Weekly Recap: Geneva's splendor reflects growing demand for ultra-luxury cars

Geneva is one of the most glittering auto shows in the world, but the list of high-powered and bespoke luxury cars was decadent this year even by the rich standards of the Swiss exhibition. It's great for enthusiasts to revel in the flame-throwing Aston Martin Vulcan, the racing-inspired elegance of the Bentley EXP 10 Speed 6 concept and the insane performance of the Lamborghini Aventador LP 750-4 Superveloce, but there's a reason for all of this opulence: the luxury market is big business. And it's growing. IHS Automotive forecasts that so-called ultra-premium sales will nearly triple this decade from 123,000 to 353,000 units around the world. The estimate includes brands like Aston Martin, Bentley, Ferrari and Rolls-Royce, but doesn't count BMW, Mercedes and Audi, which offer less expensive models in addition to their high-end flagships. Though IHS includes Porsche and its relatively large volume in the study, the ultra-premium segment is still set grow at about the same rate, even without the German automaker's figures. So what is propelling all of this growth in the most expensive segment of the auto industry? Put simply, there's more rich people. IHS Automotive principal analyst Tim Urquhart pointed to economic expansion in China, market recovery in the United States and a surge in the lucrative technology sector as contributing factors. This dovetails with a research report by UK-based Oxfam, an international relief organization, which found the world's richest one-percent owned 48 percent of global wealth in 2014, and it's expected to increase to more than 50 percent by 2016. View 17 Photos Carmakers are moving quickly to capitalize with new products, expanding their portfolios with low-volume speedsters like the 800-hp V12 Vulcan at Geneva, and plans to enter new segments, like Rolls-Royce's strategy to make an SUV. "Ultra-premium carmakers are looking to explore ways of growing their product offerings, and thus their bottom lines, in this most potentially profitable of segments," Urquhart wrote in a report on the Geneva show. In a nutshell, there are more choices for people with more money. It's a good time to have expensive taste. Other News & Notes 2016 Mazda MX-5 Miata production launches It won't be long now. The 2016 Mazda MX-5 Miata arrives later this year, and it's officially in production. Mazda announced this week that the roadster began rolling off the assembly line at its Ujina factory in Hiroshima, Japan.