Car Throttle

Whilst major manufacturers like Ferrari and Lamborghini are slowly inching their way from supercars weighing a portly 1450kg (3100lbs) or so to a target weight of around 1,000kg (2200kg), small volume manufacturers are already manufacturing sub 1000kg sports cars. One such manufacturer is Gillet. Gillet is the brainchild of Tony Gillet, a Belgian racing driver who was famous for winning the Belgian hill climb championship for several years and had also competed in the Paris-Dakar Rally. He started off as the official importer of the Dutch made Lotus Super 7 derived Donkervoort and has branched off into car manufacturing with the Gillet Vertigo series of sports car. What started production in 1993 (the original Vertigo pictured above) has now evolved into the current Vertigo 5 Spirit.

Conventional thinking is that in times of economic turbulence, companies of non-essential high-end products like Lamborghini would suffer greatly. For the year of 2008 at least, Lamborghini bucked that, posting both a sales and profit increase. Problems accelerated significantly in 2009 though, and reality set in for everyone - including Lamborghini. Lets take a look at the damage. Sales declined by some 37.7 percent, to 1,515 cars. That is after a 2.5% increase for 2008 that resulted in 2430 cars sold, Lamborghini's highest figure ever. A 37.7 percent decline was enough to turn a $79.6 million profit to a $47.6 million pretax loss. Ouch! Lamborghini blames the sales decline on two things: finance industries fell hard last year and many of Lamborghini's customers were in that sector and

We know that the March is a way off (the North American International Auto Show hasn't even started yet) but who would turn down the chance to see a new Lamborghini early? We thought so. Rumors of a SuperVeloce based on the Gallardo have been swirling, and new images leaked on the web seemingly add a bit more credibility to those. The last special Gallardo model was the Superleggera (meaning super light in Italian) a model that lost pounds and added a bit of horsepower. The SuperVeloce would take things even further, it's 570 designation indicating a rise in output from the car's V-10 to 570 horsepower. Leaked is three new images, and you can spot the "SV" designation on the side. It isn't certain whether these are official renderings

The exotic and high-end car destruction rampage continues! Those who enjoy seeing machinery destroyed have got quite their fill over the past few weeks, seeing the Bugatti Veyron crash into a lake, a Ferrari California crash into construction equipment, an Aston Martin crash into a tree (cracking it in half), and an Audi R8 get into an accident involving two 0ther cars - what a list! Now another one has happened, this time involving a Lamborhini and the police - it is not your "usual" (if there is one) exotic-car crash story though. For those who want to hear about the Gallardo, and not one being crashed, CarThrottle recently completed its review of the Italian supercar. This was not a high speed chase that

Test Vehicle: Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 5.2L V10 with 6-speed eGear Auto Gearbox You are never quite prepared for how small these supercars are sometimes.  Low slung, painted in a beautiful pearl metalic color with a set of beautiful black wheels, the latest Gallardo out of Sant A'gata looked purposeful and amazing. The Gallardo doesn't have the sense of drama of the Murcielago with the regular opening doors, but it's still a design that turns heads.  Totally different from the other Italians and their curves and swoops, I loved the angular look of the Gallardo. It was attracting a lot of attention, and camera phones were in full force wherever I went in this thing.  The redesigned front of the LP560-4 looks fantastic, with the scoops looking more dramatic