Not too long ago Lamborghini updated their Gallardo model with the new LP560-4. Why the name? LP stands for “longitudinal poseriore” because of the rear longitudinal engine position. The 560 part of the name represents the amount of horsepower that the 5.2L V10 pumps out. -4 represents 4 wheel drive. Congratulations, consider yourself a Lamborghini Gallardo naming expert!

I ran over to Lamborghini Washington for a first hand look at the new supercar. They had two in the inventory, one in white, and the other in a semi-dark silver:

Thinking of picking one up?? The silver one will run you about $265,000:

Lamborghini has a habit of doing this. They design a car that I look at and fall in love with. I can’t even begin to fathom how the design can be improved, but then they redesign, and it looks even better. Most notably to me the major improvements are on the front and rear parts of the car. The frontend has a new, more aggressive looking bumper with larger openings. It looks more like their super duper car, the $1.6 million Reventon. Along with the redesigned headlights, it makes the new rendition much angrier looking.

More importantly the rear of the car has been completely redesigned. I would say that the rear of the first Gallardo was the one part of the car that a lot of people didn’t like so much. Obviously Lamborghini heard this too, and redesigned accordingly. The new rear is much cleaner:

The updated lower profile taillights and the quad exhaust tips really do the majority of the improvements for me.

Here’s some more pictures that I took for you to enjoy:

Here’s a couple that were hooked up that I saw at SEMA in Las Vegas:

If you ever visit Monte Carlo, you’ll be amazed by the number of exotic cars that will be driving around. In the period of about an hour, I probably saw 200 or so Ferrari’s. Here’s a little picture gallery of some of the different cars that I saw while in the city…this is tens of millions of dollars worth of cars:

Bentley convertible:

GT3 Porsche – This was owned by the guy that owns the company where we went parasailing and jet skiing.

Mercedes SL65 AMG

SLR Mercedes

Ferrari F430 Scuderia

See more exotic cars pictures from Monte Carlo >>

The economy may be in a fairly bad place right now, but the right people still have money to spend. How about on joining a car club where membership starts around $38,000/year and goes all the way up to $100,000+? Oh, I forgot to mention the $15,000 initiation fee. Today we’ll be profiling Luxautica, the ultimate car club.

What Is It And How Does It Work?

Luxautica is a high-end car club that allows the elite to have access to an arsenal of vehicles from a $184000 Aston Martin DB9, to a $1.7 million Bugatti Veyron. They even have one of seven Maserati MC-12’s ($1.4m) in their fleet.

For a yearly fee, members get access to points, which can be redeemed for a car. Let’s take a look at a sample scenario. Let’s say you get the Silver membership ($38,400), you are given 1,200 points. You could go for a Lamborghini Gallardo, which is 20 points for a weekday, 30 points for a weekend, or 140 points for a week. The cars in this price range should expect to be around this many points. So you could rent a Gallardo for about 2.5 months out of the year. On the other hand, their most expensive car, the Bugatti Veyron, will run you 1,000 points/day.

On top of having access to the cars, you also get a few extras:

• Access to the private member lounge
• Private VIP events
• Concierge services
• Access to premium tickets to local sporting events
• Chauffeur services for the Maybach and Rolls Royce cars
• Exclusive golf excursions
• Sales and acquisition services for exotic cars

The concept of why somebody would pay such high prices for just renting these sort of cars comes behind the high cost of ownership and the little amount of time these cars are actually driven. Between the cost of maintenance, and depreciation, these cars are very expensive to own. Luxautica lets you get access at potentially a much cheaper per mile cost when you look at the big picture…on top of more selection.

The Fleet Of Cars

Luxautica has a fleet of 20 cars worth over $11 million, but plans on growing it further. They said if they have 100 memberships, they will double the fleet. Here’s what you can currently expect:

Aston Martin DB9 Volante | $183,250

Bentley Flying Spur | $170,990

Porsche GT3 RS | $124,900

Spyker Laviolette | $278,000

Ferrari F430 | $173,079

Ferrari F430 Spider | $201,123

Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 | $313,600

Mercedes SLR | $495,000

Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano | $264,034

Ford GT | $139,995

Lamborghini Gallardo | $180,050

Bentley GTC | $193,990

Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder | $206,000

Rolls Royce Phantom | $340,000

Mercedes Maybach 62 | $386,500

Porsche Carrera GT | $484,000

Saleen S7 | $555,000

Ferrari Enzo | $1.1m

Maserati MC-12 | $1.4m

Bugatti Veyron | $1.7m

Who’s Behind The Company?

Luxautica was started by Raju Mantena, some of the cars even came from his personal collection. Raju founded a privately held specialty pharmaceutical management firm in 2003, which he sold in 2006. He sold it for almost $200 million, more than enough to start Luxautica.

The Facility

Luxautica is located in a 12,005 square-foot bulding that used to be the Millennia art gallery. Part of that space is a private lounge for members only.

The private lounge is a 4,800 square-foot clubhouse that features high-tech audio/video with 16 plasma screens, a game room that converts into boardroom, a cigar room, a private bar with world-class wine list and cigar collection, and a 1,600 square-foot patio.

If you don’t want to go for the cars, you can have access to the members lounge for $15,000/year. Gerry Mattia, an Orlando chiropracter who has a nondriving membership was interviewed in this article.

??I??ll take them over there, and they see $1.6 million Bugattis, and the club is done so extremely well, it??s very impressive to them. It??s great for me in business circles,?? Mattia said.

The social aspects are a plus, he said.

??It??s similar to a country club, but instead of it being golf and tennis, it??s cars,?? Mattia said. ??You get to meet a lot of other people. Most of these people, obviously, if you join this, are fairly successful. If you want to advance sometimes, that??s the place to be.?

No detail was overlooked, the lighting in the facility, done by Electronic Systems Design, was a $500,000 project on its own. In fact $2 million was spent in renovating the facility for Luxautica.

For us regular people that could only dream about driving these sort of cars, you can at least go look at them for $20/adults and $10/children. Here’s all of the contact info:

Luxautica
4190 Millenia Boulevard
Orlando, Florida 32839
1.877.666.6878
info@luxautica.com

Lamborghini has really outdone itself lately, and the predecessor to the original Gallardo is a great example of that. The newly named Gallardo LP 560-4 outclasses the original car in almost every way, and it looks better too.

The car was officially announced back in March during the Geneva auto show. Some of the notable features are as follows:

• Features a new 5.2 litre V10 engine that pumps out 560hp. The original Gallardo does 520hp.
• It’s 20 kilograms lighter than the original Gallardo
• The power weight ratio is 2.5 kilograms per hp
• It does 0-62mph in 3.7 seconds
• Top speed of 201mph
• Increased fuel efficiency
• 18% less C02 emissions

From the exterior, the most notable updates is the new front end ( which looks a lot more Reventon looking), a new rear (which looks night and day better than its predecessor), and new wheels. The car is surely more refined looking:

One blog that I recently found was that of Samuel Hubinette, who is a professional drifter for Dodge/Mopar. If you read through his blog, you’ll see that he does a lot of promotional stuff like filming and driving in commercials for car makes. Back on March 31st, you’ll see a post he made about a commercial he was working on for the new Lamborghini Gallardio LP 560-4. It’s a pretty cool post with some nice behind the scenes pictures….but we were all dying to see the outcome. Look no further, the video was just released and it is amazing:

I love the film work in the video, and it really makes me want to buy the car….especially with the phone collector feature Too bad that the $200,000 USD price tag is just a bit over my price range. For more pictures of the car, check it out here.

Would you like to know what the ultimate piece of art is for a car enthusiast? How about a Lamborghini hanging on your wall. That’s exactly what millionaire Vintner Richard Moriarty did. He took a 1974 Lamborghini Countach and bolted against the wall of his $2 million Newport Beach, CA home.

It took a 70-ton crane, crew of workers, and a hole in the ceiling to get the car in the house and on the wall. The engine was removed from the car prior to getting in the house, leaving at around 1,000 lbs.

Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time a Lambo has been mounted to a wall for display. The more expensive Diablo hangs from the wall at the Lamborghini Museum in Bolognese, Italy.

Richard bought his Countach for $60,000, and if you’re interested in doing the same thing,there’s one for sale with low miles on eBay for a mere $127,000. Or perhaps the Diablo better suits you for $219,000. For the high-rollers, try the Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 on your wall…just make sure to send me pics!

Have some old cars laying around? Donate a car towards a good cause! You can also donate your boat or donate a RV to your favorite charity. There are benefits to vehicle donations including tax deductions for you. Read car donation FAQ today.

I didn’t think it was possible to have an ugly Lamborghini, but John Ferci made that happen. John somehow acquired exclusive rights from Lamborghini to build custom versions and still retain the name and official badge. In the beginning of the month a rendering was released:

Not so good….but hey, it’s just a rendering, so maybe the final version will look much better. Think again! Autoblog has the what are supposed to be first official shots of the Lamborghini Alar.

That just looks horrific. The only good thing to say about it is that it should produce over 700hp and have a top speed of 223mph. Here are some of the classic comments from Autoblog in response:

• someone must die for this. – Ben
• The designers of this car should be sent to an island where they’ll never be able to hurt anyone ever again! – JC3
• Another reason to say NO to crack… – Eric

What do you think about the car?

Update: An official production picture can be found at Autoblog.