Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4 assembled in a small room – Click above to watch the video after the jump
There is a lot going on with the Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4. The Raging
Bull’s new range topper features a 691-horsepower V12 that can propel
the world’s fanciest door stop to 60 miles per hour in a scant 2.9
seconds. The Aventador looks good enough to cause whiplash injuries
from rubbernecking onlookers. We could gush endlessly about Italy’s
newest exotic, and at the end of the day there will always be room in our driveway for such a supercar.
But what about our living room?
The folks at Lamborghini needed to deliver an Aventador to a Lamborghini
Museum exhibition called “La Forza del Toro” at Chiostro del.
Unfortunately, the Great Room-sized space reserved for the exotic
contained no entryway large
enough to drive the Aventador through, but that’s when Italian
ingenuity comes into play. Instead of knocking down a wall or lifting a ceiling, Team Lambo simply delivered an Aventador in pieces, then put them together on the spot. The end result is a fully functional Aventador for the “La Forza del Toro” exhibit.
For some people the wheelie seems like an impossible trick. I have
friends that still can’t wheelie after practicing for years. If you
seriously want to learn this trick then read on. If you lack the passion
to learn and you become discouraged easily, forget about learning the
pop up wheelie.
Step #1: You will probably hit the ground. Wear
protective gear. Chances are, you will loop backwards, land on your
tail bone, smack the back of your skull and spin a pedal into your shin
bone. Step #2: Practice with platform pedals. Leave the BMW Shin Burger Pedals in the tool box. A clipped in wheelie is a suicide mission. Step #3: If your seat height is higher than your handlebars, lower your seat. Install a stem 100 mm long or less.
Finally, it’s time to practice! This trick is much easier on a mountain bike than a BMX bike. Mountain bikes
are very stable on the rear wheel. The front of the bike is fairly
easy to lift up and the long wheel base inspires confidence. Bikes with
chain stays less than 17″ are easier to learn on. Step #4: Try your first attempt pedaling up hill. Not up Pikes Peak, but up a gradual hill. If you begin to wheelie, you will spaz out and pedaling harder to keep the front wheel up. Pedaling up hill will add resistance. This resistance will counter your spastic pedaling
forces and should help keep your front wheel up. After mastering the
up hill wheelie, you can practice on flat ground. In order to wheelie
on flat ground, you’ll have to slow down by modulating the rear brake. This is a tricky move, since squeezing the rear brake will force the front tire back down to the ground. Step #5: Do not practice on a windy day. The wind
will push your front wheel away from you. Even the slightest blow will
affect your wheelie. It is possible to ride a wheelie in the wind, but
it takes a lot of practice. I met a surfer kid in Clearwater, Florida who could wheelie his BMX bike on wet sand, fighting constant 25 mph winds, bare foot with no brakes. Step #6: Stay seated; utilize a combination of the
forks rebound, upper body strength and power on the cranks to loft the
front of your bike in the air. Try using the middle chainring and the
32 tooth cog on the rear gear cluster. You need to choose a gear that
will maintain the wheelie and is easy to lift the front wheel at slow
speeds. You can shift gears while in a wheelie. It’s very difficult to
do. I’ve seen people carry 30 mph wheelies shifting and pedaling. Step #7: Relax. Loosen up on the handlebars and go with the flow.
Let your arms stretch out, look far ahead and breath. You will need to
steer the bike with body English. Keep your feet to the outside of the
pedals and apply pressure to each pedal accordingly. Try to not lean
your body with the bike. Leaning in the same direction as the bike will
cause you and the bike to turn. This is an advanced move. Try and ride a
straight line for now. Eventually, you will feel the sweet spot.
Riding a wheelie is almost effortless. If you’re exerting yourself,
you’re working too hard.
The wheelie is the trick you will base all other tricks on. Once you
have mastered it, you can practice “coaster wheelies”. (A sit down
wheelie while not pedaling, usually performed down hill). Once you learn
the coaster wheelie, you should try “manuals”. Manuals are easily
mistaken with coater wheelies, but they’re much harder. Basically a
manual is a stand up coaster wheelie.
Ferruccio
Lamborghini was born in Italy in 1916. He was
fascinated with engines from an early age. During World
War II he joined the army and was stationed on the
island of Rhodes. Fortunately there was little going on
there during the war. The island was essentially isolated from
the rest of the world. Any
cars, trucks or motorcycles that broke down had to be
repaired on the spot with reused parts. Lamborghini became
known as a wizard at mechanical improvisation and became very much
in demand at fixing engines.
After the war he returned to his home near Modena in
northern Italy and setup a small car and motorcycle repair shop.
He soon realized that there was a desperate need for
tractors in the agricultural area in which he lived. He
found he could build about one tractor a month from derelict military vehicles.
As Italy’s economy grew demand for his high quality tractors
started to grow. He began building his own tractor engines. His
tractor business became very successful reaching a rate
of over 400 a month in 1960. He soon looked at
expanding the business and in 1960 began manufacturing
heaters and air conditioning units for buildings as well as maintaining the tractor business. This too became very successful.
About this time Lamborghini started to get interested
in developing a high performance car. He had owned
Oscas, Maseratis and Ferraris but was always
disappointed with them. Particularly their engines. There is a now
famous story about how he was frustrated with
problems he had with a clutch in a Ferrari (a
Ferrari 250 GT), and went to visit Enzo Ferrari who’s
factory was nearby. Enzo had no time for a tractor manufacture
and simply dismissed him. Lamborghini decided
there was nothing Ferrari was doing he could
not do better. He decided too build his own car
with a V12 engine. For the design he found a very
talented engineer named Giampaolo Dallara who
had previously worked on a Ferrari V12 engine. The new engine had 4 cams, a short stroke and 4 big bore valves
per cylinder. It developed a surprising 350 HP. It was an all
aluminum engine with a crankshaft supported by seven main bearings.
These crankshafts were machined from SAE 9840 steel. The
connecting rods (12) were of SAE 4340 steel. The pistons were of
forged aluminum. Each pair of camshafts were driven by their own
half engine speed sprocket and silent chain. This engine was
really the prototype for all
future Lamborghini engines. A body designed by Scaglione-Touring
was used to house the engine.The Lamborghini “350 GTV” prototype
was shown to the public on the Turin Auto Show of 1963. Sales
started the following year. The car was called the 350 GT. It was a
complete success. Over 130 were sold.The future
of Automobili Lamborghini looked very bright during the sixties.
The 350 GT was succeeded by the 400 GT and then the 400 GT 2+2.
The 350 GT and 400 GT 2+2 made the Lamborghini name known
throughout the world. With the funds coming in from these cars and
his successful tractor business Ferruccio allowed his engineers to
design and construction a new car
– the Lamborghini Miura. The Miura made the Lamborghini name
legendary. It was a car truly ahead of its time. It shocked even
companies like Ferrari and Maserati. The Miura was first shown on November 1965 at the Turin Auto
Show by Ferruccio Lamborghini himself. Only the chassis was shown
at the show, the engine was transversely mid-mounted, something up
to then only seen in real F1 race cars. The design of the body was
executed by Marcello Gandini in less than a year, and on the March
1966 Geneva Show it was completed and on display. It looked even
better than in Turin. The car was very aggressively styled, and an
appropriate name was chosen for it, the Miura, a name taken from
the ferocious Spanish fighting bulls. Again the car was a complete
success. This was followed in 1973 at the Geneva Auto Show when
Lamborghini shocked the world again with his revolutionary LP400
Countach. Only a prototype was shown. Today it is difficult to
realize the impact that car had on everybody at that time. Even now
the car is a show stopper! The car at the show was painted in a
bright red and with a black suede interior. It showed for the first
time, the by now, famous, Lamborghini signature swing up doors. It
also displayed unique vertically mounted rear air intakes to go with its powerful 4 Liter engine. In 1974 disaster struck. The Lamborghini tractor business
received a major setback. A massive order for tractors to a south
American country was cancelled. Lamborghini anticipating the
demand, had previously upgraded the tractor factory to be able to
build the numbers of tractors required. The company lost a lot of
money over it. Compounding things also at this time was a series of
labor problems at the factory. While his personal fortune was
still considerable he decided to sell part of his share in the
factory. Eventually the factory was taken over by Fiat. During the seventies the company survived on sales of Miura’s. The car business started to be self sufficient and make money.
However Lamborghini eventually sold all his remaining stock in the
company to a Swiss investor. The company to this day still
retains his name however. Ferruccio Lamborghini died in February
1993 at the age of almost 76 The oil crisis of the 70′s started to made sales of high
performance cars difficult. Production art the factory was plagued
with budget and parts supply problems. People gave up waiting for
cars with two year back orders. A wealthy Canadian, Walter Wolf,
played a major role is supporting Lamborghini and developing the
Countach during these difficult times. In 1978 the company declared bankruptcy. An Italian court was
appointed to find a buyer. A Swiss based group called the Mimran
brother’s were able to save the factory. Patrick Mimran (one of the
brothers), in 1980 started to turn the company around. The
Countach was developed further under him from the LP500 S right up
to the impressive QuattroValvole. . Just as things were going well, the Mimran brothers sold the
company to Chrysler Corporation. This was a big surprise at the
time. Chrysler support however was just what the company needed at
that time. They were working on a Countach successor – the
Diablo. Chrysler kept the winning team together in Italy. While the
cultures of the two companies were different and things got
stressful between the management groups, they did succeed in
bringing the vast resources of Chrysler to bear on the design,
pollution controls, and new manufacturing techniques etc. for the new car. Again the result was an outstanding success. The new Lamborghini
Diablo got rave reviews everywhere it went. However in another
twist of faith, in 1994 Chrysler fell upon hard times and had to
sell the company. It was bought by an Indonesian investment group
headed by Tommy Suharto of the well known Suharto family.
Unfortunately in the late 90′s an economical crisis started to hit
the Indonesian owners hard and the much needed money for research
on a successor to the Diablo started to dry up. Fortunately the German company Audi had an interest in
Lamborghini. On August 4 1998, in a complex series of transactions
Audi AG became the sole owner of Automobili Lamborghini. As in the
case of the Chrysler buyout, this could not have been a better time
for Lamborghini. Audi took an active role in designing the
Murcielago and brought to the table again the vast resources of a
major automobile company to develop and produce another exotic car. Lets hope this is the last chapter of ownership changes in this
unique little Italian car company. It is to the credit of the
people there that they have hung in to all the changes of ownership
they have experienced over the years and yet produced such
exciting cars.
