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Lamborghini Huracan Performante's active aero is the secret to its speed

The most revolutionary real technology at this year's Geneva Motor Show didn't look like it on the show stand. If you squint at the Lamborghini Huracan Performante, it merely looks like a Huracan with a big wing. Up close, you can see the fractal texture of the forged-composite aerodynamic add-ons, but that still doesn't tell you why this car is so special. Lamborghini calls it Aerodinamica Lamborghini Attiva (ALA), or active aerodynamics. This is one of the biggest keys to the Performante's claimed production-car record lap time at the Nurburgring Nordschleife of 6 minutes, 52.01 seconds. The Huracan Performante's number is not without controversy, but I personally care very little about the obsessive phallic-measuring contests that are 'Ring lap times. What's fascinating about the Performante is that, if the lap time is even close to legitimate, it shows that ALA is a major step forward in automotive performance. More than just lap times, the Huracan Performante is an example of why Lamborghini remains special in a world of democratized performance. We sat down to discuss this with Lamborghini's Research and Development Director, Maurizio Reggiani. And one last note on the lap time: Reggiani says with the same temperature and exclusive access to a dry track, "that in this average of speed we can repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat." In previous conversations, Reggiani said that the key difference in performance would come not from horsepower, but weight reduction. For Lamborghini, that means plenty of carbon fiber. But the newest Huracan is not a Superleggera, the old title for the hardcore variant. "Superleggera is too much an objective, a description. Performante is really the DNA of the car. In Italian, Performante means really the best performance," he said. Reggiani continues, "Nothing happened by chance. It's really a building-block approach where you say this can give this contribution, this can give that. Where can you improve something and what is needed to improve something?" That brought them to the active aerodynamics solution, which channels air to stall the front or rear aero elements of the car to change the downforce and drag. Reggiani says, "This can be achieved only with a system that is really light, [has] fast responsiveness. Based on this ...

A new Lamborghini Countach is coming soon

Update: We received a tip in email that somebody posted an image online from Lamborghini's customer-only app, Lamborghini Unica. It reveals a teaser image of the Countach LPI 800-4 not previously made available to the public. The Instagram post also reveals that the Countach will be revealed during Monterey Car Week on August 15. The "LPI" moniker is the giveaway that this car will be a hybrid, as Lamborghini has used that term on the hybrid Asterion LPI 910-4 Concept. We also expect it to make 800 PS, which is about 789 horsepower. The "4" refers to it being all-wheel drive. You can check out the Instagram post and teaser photo below. It reveals the vents mounted on the side window and the vented intake behind it. Below this, we see what appears to be a gas cap. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. The original post continues below. Lamborghini just announced that a new Countach is coming. Let us repeat. Lamborghini just announced that a new Countach is coming! OK. Let that soak in for a few seconds, or minutes, however long it takes. We’re a bit shocked over here, too. ThereÂ’s one teaser image to go off of, and Lamborghini hasnÂ’t let loose any details beyond giving us the name. You can see the car under a car cover and shrouded by haze in the photo above. However, thereÂ’s a video thatÂ’s been posted to Twitter that you can watch below. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. We get some great engine noises, and the new Countach appears to be parked a long way away from the camera at the end of the video. It appears to be painted white, but thatÂ’s all we can tell about it from that distance. ThereÂ’s no doubt that Lamborghini is leaning heavily into nostalgic feelings, as you see original Countach posters pinned up to a kidÂ’s room in the video. Lamborghini seems intent on recapturing that wild, exotic magic that the old Countach brought to the supercar landscape. It's tough to say what the styling will be like besides being a wedge like most Lambos. It could be a very retro design, sort of like the Miura concept from over a decade ago. It could also be a thoroughly modern Lamborghini design that happens to have a classic nameplate attached. For what it's worth, Lamborghini's design boss seemed to be against anything overtly retro as of a few years ago.

Lamborghini confirms Veneno Roadster is coming

As it turns out, there might just be more than three lucky souls on the planet who will be able to claim ownership of a Lamborghini Veneno. While Lamborghini still plans to make triplets out of the winged and vented hypercar, we hear that there is a Veneno Roadster in the works.
Early yesterday, our own Matt Davis caught wind of an open-top Veneno, but Car and Driver has some more details about the car. The article says that a total of nine Veneno Roadsters could be built with each carrying a price tag of around $4.4 million US. If you're keeping track at home, that's a premium of a cool half-million bucks to get the Veneno to go topless, and with all three of the coupes already accounted for, we're sure Lamborghini won't have a hard time unloading the Roadsters.
There is no additional information about the Lamborghini Veneno Roadster, but if we had to guess, we'd figure it will likely use some lightweight removable roof panels like the Aventador Roadster.