Great Machines: Driver's Notebook: Weekend Warriors
June 1, 2008
The shapes are familiar. Beneath carbon-fiber wing spoilers, Day-Glo paint jobs, and sweeping black decals along their flanks, the evergreen lines of a Lamborghini Gallardo and a Porsche 911 are instantly recognizable. But these cars look leaner, angrier, and slightly scarier. The now-discontinued Gallardo Superleggera (a scant 400 examples emerged from Lamborghini’s factory in Sant’Agata) and ultra-limited-production 911 GT3 RS are worlds apart from their lesser kin—track-ready racers made roadworthy only through faintest concessions to civility and legality.
From a conceptual standpoint, the two cars are similar. Both are lightweight, factory-tuned sports cars with performance that borders on the divine. Lamborghini’s Gallardo Superleggera is the runway model, with carbon-fiber composite used for the engine cover, rear diffuser, underbody cover, exterior mirrors, rear wing, side sills, and inner door panels. Pounds were shaved from the driveshafts, and the rear window is now polycarbonate instead of heavier glass. The overall weight loss is more than 150 pounds—a substantial improvement (akin to asking the person in the passenger seat to get out and walk). It reduces the coupe’s curb weight to 2,998 pounds.
Capitalizing on this weight reduction, Lamborghini’s engineers squeezed an extra 11 hp from the 5-liter V-10 engine, for a total of 530 hp. In the process, the engine became louder but no less musical, belting out a wonderful noise that’s entirely worthy of a $228,000 car.
That price tag makes the Porsche’s 911 GT3 RS an absolute steal at around $125,000, since the noises produced by its 415 hp 3.6-liter flat-six engine at the 8,400-rpm redline are equally magnificent. Like the Gallardo, the GT3 RS is a specially fitted vehicle—but this one is intended for actual competition, not merely a celebration of RS heritage. Porsches wearing this famed logotype have enjoyed numerous competitive successes (the 1973 Targa Florio among them), before going on to become gilt-edged investments for collectors.
As Lamborghini did with the Gallardo to create the Superleggera, Porsche considered every opportunity for weight savings in building the GT3 RS. Once steel, the doors and front decklid are now aluminum, and the rear decklid is plastic composite with a prominent (and fully adjustable) carbon-fiber composite wing. As a result, the GT3 RS emerges from the factory weighing just over 3,000 pounds.
The Gallardo’s giant wing fills the rearview mirror, leaving just enough space above and below the blade for a decent view down the road—not that there are many cars able to keep pace with this one. Possessing enough flexibility to troll around suburbia below 2,000 rpm, the Gallardo’s V-10 pulls with ever-increasing intensity to 8,000 rpm. Driven with gusto, the Superleggera will sprint to 60 mph in a scant 3.5 seconds, which, for a 3,000-pound car with all-wheel-drive, is an extraordinary feat.
The engine delivers furious bursts of thrust and a trumpeting exhaust crescendo, as the tachometer needle winds manically toward the redline. Tug at the upshift paddle behind the steering wheel, and the next gear engages like another thruster stage, violently resuming the onward rush. After just eight seconds—at the top of third gear—you pass 100 mph. Not that you’d know it, because the gold font on the instrument faces is practically unreadable.
For maximum straight-line action, simply press the accelerator, aim the car, and pull on the paddles. Twisty roads call for a little more driver participation, but despite its considerable size, the Lamborghini is surprisingly agile. Wrapped around 19-inch alloy wheels, Pirelli P Zero Corsa tires—235-series up front and 295-series at the rear—provide considerable grip (and produce a lot of road noise), and the engine’s rear-mid location makes for modestly burdened front end, so changing direction is quick and easy. The car’s handling is surprisingly neutral, with predictable degree of front-end push at the limit despite the slight rear-end weight bias. It isn’t difficult to drive the Superleggera quickly if your timing is spot on. But if you do happen to get out of phase, there’s always the stability control system standing by to save your bacon.
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