Lamborghini gets a facelift: good, or bad?

2 August, 2016

For me, the later-model Lamborghinis aren’t the most attractive supercars out there. For some, their fighter jet–like appearance has them drooling, but for me, I like my supercars with a more classic shape, resembling Ferraris of the ’80s for example. This is why I find the Mitsubishi GTO and Honda NSX extremely attractive. Call me old-fashioned, if you will. When I heard Lamborghini were releasing a facelift-kit option for their Huracán model, I was curious to see what they came up with. 

Racing stripes, canards, flares, and a rear wing — what were they thinking? They’ve taken a questionable-looking supercar and have turned it into something you’d see in the films of the Fast and the Furious franchise … I’m not sure what Lamborghini is up to, but I’m hoping they sort their act out soon. Ferrari and McLaren are still producing beautiful supercars, and even Audi’s R8 is better looking, which, for a company that doesn’t know what colour is, is saying something! 

What do you think of the new additions to the Lamborghini Huracán? Hit or miss? 

Lunch with … Cary Taylor

Many years ago — in June 1995 to be more precise — I was being wowed with yet another terrific tale from Geoff Manning who had worked spanners on all types of racing cars. We were chatting at Bruce McLaren Intermediate school on the 25th anniversary of the death of the extraordinary Kiwi for whom the school was named. Geoff, who had been part of Ford’s Le Mans programme in the ’60s, and also Graham Hill’s chief mechanic — clearly realising that he had me in the palm of his hand — offered a piece of advice that I’ve never forgotten: “If you want the really good stories, talk to the mechanics.”
Without doubt the top mechanics, those involved in the highest echelons of motor racing, have stories galore — after all, they had relationships with their drivers so intimate that, to quote Geoff all those years ago, “Mechanics know what really happened.”

ROTARY CHIC

Kerry Bowman readily describes himself as a dyed-in-the-wool Citroën fan and a keen Citroën Car Club member. His Auckland home holds some of the chic French cars and many parts. He has also owned a number of examples of the marque as daily drivers, but he now drives a Birotor GS. They are rare, even in France, and this is a car which was not supposed to see the light of day outside France’s borders, yet somehow this one escaped the buyback to be one of the few survivors out in the world.
It’s a special car Kerry first saw while overseas in the ’70s, indulging an interest sparked early on by his father’s keenness for Citroëns back home in Tauranga. He was keen to see one ‘in the flesh’.
“I got interested in this Birotor when I bought a GS in Paris in 1972. I got in contact with Citroën Cars in Slough, and they got me an invitation to the Earls Court Motor Show where they had the first Birotor prototype on display. I said to a guy on the stand, ‘I’d like one of these,’ and he said I wouldn’t be allowed to get one. Citroën were building them for their own market to test them, and they were only left-hand drive.”