#1703, 09 March 2017, page 90.

WORDS TWO EPIC TOURS, 40 YEARS APART, MEL NICHOLS PHOTOS LAMBORGHINIONAMBORGHINI SOME OF EUROPE’S FINEST ROADS JOHN MASON CONVOY! #1703, 09 March 2017, page 92.

#1703, 09 March 2017, page 92.

OCTOBER 1976, ON THE ORIGINAL CONVOY! DRIVE, DOING 258KM/H IN A LAMBO URRACO. BACK THEN, FRENCH MOTORWAYS DIDN’T HAVE SPEED LIMITS...

CONVOY!

AST TIME, it started with a phone call and When we picked up the A6 Autoroute culminated in a story called Convoy! I wrote du Soleil at Mâcon for the 730km run via for CAR (the magazine I was editing in to Calais, Roger flattened the mighty London) and Wheels’ sister magazine, Sports Countach. Steve and I, in the Urraco and Car World. It told how four of us drove a Silhouette, tried to stay with him but ran Countach, Silhouette and Urraco flat out out of steam when their speedos touched from the Lamborghini factory to England. 265km/h. The Countach thundered past a On a Thursday afternoon in October stationary motorbike cop and faded into the 1976, Roger Phillips, the UK’s Lamborghini distance. The gendarme watched the little importer, phoned to say he was flying to V8s go by too, then mounted up. Italy with two pals (Steve Brazier and David We stopped at the next service area. He Jolliffe) to collect three Lamborghinis for pulled in, sauntered over, nodded hello and the Earl’s Court Motor Show. If I got to admired the cars. Two more bike cops did Heathrow in two hours I could join in. the same and then a group of gendarmes At Sant’Agata, we waited a day while the from a bus came over to look. Word was Silhouette was finished, then took spreading, but we knew we were going to off on a Saturday morning. We got be okay. was still without motorway into our stride at a steady 180km/h speed limits and the cops’ demeanour said or so on the Autostrada del Sole up “fair enough, chaps”. to Milano, and used the cars’ grunt to nip- After breakfast, we accelerated away nip-nip past the trucks in the Aosta Valley and gobbled the long, lazy curves where up to the Mont Blanc Tunnel, and to clear the A6 climbs through the Cote-d’Or’s soft the gaggles on the D roads beyond Geneva. hills. While David was driving the Urraco, At nightfall, after a struggling Citroen 2CV I took the picture of its speedo on 160mph nearly took out the Silhouette, we stopped (258km/h) from the passenger’s seat, with at a hotel near Nantua in France. the Silhouette and Countach drifting along We fired up the Lamborghinis at six the ahead. It was a surreal experience seeing next morning. They were properly warm those dramatic bronze-gold shapes glittering when we struck the D979 that swoops in in the sun as they ate the empty pale grey and out of the River Ain valley. It’s the kind ribbon of motorway and speared into the of road you dream about. And that day it blue of that Sunday morning was magical: mist turned the valley below When we switched off in London, we us silver, and as we zoomed down we stayed knew we’d experienced something unique. nose-to-tail, windows open, relishing the Steve Brazier, who spent 56 years working thunder of a 4.0-litre V12 and two 3.0-litre with fast cars, says: “It was stunning; the V8s – 28 cylinders, 12 camshafts, 14 Webers best driving experience of my life.” and eight exhausts – bouncing off the banks Roger Phillips: “We were lucky to be in in the still air. It was an anthemic prelude the right place at the right time. It was to the glories ahead. truly epic.” #1703, 09 March 2017, page 94.

CONVOY!

THE COUNTACH, ITS EXHAUSTS SPITTING SPARKS, IS HOUNDED BY THE THUNDEROUS DIABLO AND SINISTER MURCIELAGO

THIS time, it begins with Silhouette owner lose the first of the cars, Tadek and Verna hurried make this a physical experience. Richard Head. At his house near London, Lipinski’s Countach. A coil lead has started The more recent Murcielago SV, despite he re-reads the Convoy! story and realises arcing. A recovery truck takes it to former its paddleshifters, is brutishly tactile too. it was 40 years ago. Over a bottle of red, Lamborghini engineer Vigorito Biagio’s The oh-so-easy-to-hustle Huracan delivers Richard and fellow Lamborghini enthusiast garage Autofficina Bielle. Then the front today’s kind of supercar experience where Alan Robb hatch a plan for a re-run with brakes on Richard Head’s Silhouette start the driver has more performance than all a Countach, Silhouette and Urraco. Alan binding; and the very moment we reach the but the SV with little effort. is after-sales manager for Super Veloce factory, Chris and Sandra Notley’s Urraco I know by now how well the Huracan Racing, a high performance car sales, dumps its clutch fluid. Old cars… rides and behaves – and why its stonking service and events company outside Lamborghini’s workshop, normally 5.2-litre V10 need suffer no inferiority London. Alan emails me, starts talking to dedicated to restorations and soon getting complex in the company of V12s. As we Lamborghini owners keen to participate, new premises as part of an expanding Polo climb towards Monte Bondone, it grips and and we put together a plan for Convoy! 2. Storico program, willingly squeezes in the tears through the bends and feels accurate, We need a different route. In 1976, the Silhouette to fit new front brake calipers. dependable, and very fast: the Spyder might fastest way was through the Mont Blanc So work can run in parallel on the Urraco to be a smidgen slower than its coupe sister Tunnel to Geneva, then west to Nantua speed us on our way, the manager arranges yet its 449kW torrent of power will still and along the D979 to Bourg-en-Bresse for for Vigorito to help with Chris’s car. Before whip you from standstill to 300km/h in just the A6 at Macon, and on north via Paris to long, phone calls bring good news: the over 20 seconds. Calais. Now, there are several all-motorway Countach will be ready tonight and the But it is coming back from the top of options. We want as many miles on pristine Silhouette and Urraco 24 hours later. SP85, on the 18km-long stretch that’s been roads as possible – and I have two in mind. Meanwhile, we have a date with a road one of Europe’s best hillclimbs since 1925, Peter Robinson, my friend who lived in Italy 200km north, the SP85. The Huracan, that I learn what the Huracan is about. for 16 years, reckons the SP85 up to Monte Diablo, Murcielago, and Espada head for Switching the ANIMA setting from Strada Bondone, near Trento, is Italy’s best driving Riva del Garda, our base for the SP85 to Sport sharpens the engine mapping, road. And those epic opening scenes with jaunt. As we sit down to dinner, we hear the seven-speed gearbox, Haldex all-wheel the Miura in The Italian Job were filmed on Countach arrive. One back, two to go. drive, steering and stability-control systems. the SS27 Colle del Gran San Bernardo north Next morning, the SP85 shows us its The exhaust note snaps to spine-tingling, of Aosta. Irresistible. delights – a 60km mix of visually clear with fortissimo pops and crackles on the So the six privately owned Lamborghinis hairpins, zigzag sequences and fast open over-run, and ferocious ‘toe-and-heel’ blips of Convoy! 2 – Countach 5000 QV, bends interspersed with straights. We soon on the downshifts. Silhouette, Urraco 3000, Diablo SE30, have the stirring sight of the Countach, With the throttle flat between bends, Murcielago SV and Espada – travel by its exhausts spitting sparks on the over- the V10 hangs onto its gears to 9000rpm, transporter to a hotel near Bologna, along run, hounded by the thunderous Diablo well past its 8250rpm power peak. It will with a $470,800 UK-based Huracan LP 610-4 and sinister Murcielago, braking hard flash up two, three and even four gears (the Spyder that Lamborghini has kindly lent into the bends, squatting onto their fat ratios max at 71km/h, 106, 140, 177, 225, me. We fly down, and are set to start rear tyres to power out and bolt through 282 and 323). Initially, I underestimate the our drive from the Lamborghini factory the gears to triple-digit (mph) speeds. In carbon-ceramic discs’ voracious bite and on Monday morning. the SE30, and especially the Countach, brake too soon. When I get braver, in the They say bad things happen in threes. unassisted steering, hard brakes, meaty then amazingly short braking distances, Before we get to Sant’Agata Bolognese, we clutches and gated gearshifts that can’t be the transmission snips down – blam, blam, #1703, 09 March 2017, page 94. #1703, 09 March 2017, page 96.

Urraco in Oz Convoy’s 1976 Earl’s Court Motor Show Urraco, chassis number 15992, “THAT’S WEIRD — started life as a 1975 P250 THERE’S A HAMSTER WHEEL WHERE THE with a 2.5-litre V8. It’s CLUTCH SHOULD BE...” believed the coupe was unsold, instead being returned to the factory and converted in 1976 to a P300 (one of four). It was consigned to a UK importer and bought by Australians in London before being exported to Brisbane, where it remained for three decades. In that space, it was repainted green, red and, more recently, yellow. The well-travelled Urraco, by now wearing Victorian registration UBA 776, changed hands in 2015 for $175,000.

96 wheelsmag.com.au #1703, 09 March 2017, page 96.

CONVOY!

blam – to whichever gear it decides is right. for fun, the attitude will tighten to the braking – so different from moderns like It always seems to be correct for stability verge of oversteer, and if there’s enough the Huracan or my Porsche 991 Turbo, through the bends, and optimum response room and power the tail will move. But not which would have gone up several gears coming out. For a while, I flick the paddles much. Corsa delivers dogged neutrality for on the short straights too. It’s an analogue manually but, frankly, I can’t do it as fast optimum cornering speed. The message experience versus a digital experience.” or perfectly as the system itself. It is very I get is of a car that allows me to access Glenn Brooks in the Murcielago SV, with its different from driving an old-school manual as much of its prodigious power and paddle shifts, was using the gears more as like the Countach or SE30. Without time to capability as I wish, with supreme safety he laid down all of his car’s 493kW and, not shift so often, you stay in second or third and dependability, to enjoy a thrilling surprisingly, found it just as soul-stirring. and utilise the V12’s huge flexibility and drive, with my daughter beside me, on an The Silhouette and Urraco arrive and engine braking. Same in the V8s had they exceptional road. we leave next morning for the 390km run been here. Back in the bar, Nick Tranter reckons it to Courmayeur. Top down (dropped in 17 I’d been mindful of comments that early was the best day’s driving he’d ever had. seconds), the Spyder is a quiet, comfortable, Huracans understeered. With the Spyder’s He’s discovered new aspects of his 386kW unbuffeted cruiser at 145-ish in the introduction, Lamborghini recalibrated Diablo SE30. “Given the Diablo’s size, the autostrada traffic. Near Courmayeur, we the front-rear torque split. In Strada, the thing that surprised me,” he says, “was how peel onto SS26, the serpentine road through settings are still towards understeer but I’m nimble it was through the hairpins and La Thuile to the Piccolo San Bernardo Pass. not getting run-out at the nose. The grip at how quickly it restored balance under full High up, its bends are so compressed the both ends matches the speed and power power out of them. That huge whoomph of Huracan’s speed is governed by how fast I and the Huracan flows around accurately. torque kicked in early and stayed there all can spin the wheel from lock to lock. There’s In Sport, where Lamborghini anticipates the way to the limiter. Second’s versatility little feel in the electric steering but its a higher level of driver skill and desire was fantastic for acceleration and engine variable ratio seems to match it to each WITHOUT TIME TO SHIFT SO OFTEN, YOU STAY IN SECOND OR THIRD AND UTILISE THE V12’S HUGE FLEXIBILITY #1703, 09 March 2017, page 98.

IN THE COUNTACH ON THE WAY TO THE TOP, IT IS FASCINATING TO NOTE THE DIFFERENT FEEL AND EFFECT OF TWO LAMBORGHINIS 30 YEARS APART CONVOY! #1703, 09 March 2017, page 98.

THE BEST DRIVING ROAD IN ITALY, SAYS PETER ROBINSON. 60 KILOMETRES OF TWISTS AND TURNS LONDON THE DARDANELLI VIADUCT, SWITZERLANDWITZERLAND CALAIS MADE FAMOUS BY THE ITALIAN TRENTO JOB, AS SEEN FROM SS27 SP85

LASINO

PARIIS

VERSAILLES

FRANCE

TACKLING THE SERPENTINE HAIRPINS OF THE PICCOLO SAN BERNARDO PASS GENGENEVAEVVAVA ITALY MMARMARTIGNYTIG MAMMACONACON RRIVAIVA DEL GARDA AOSTA

MILAN

SANT’AGATA

BOLOGNA

reward is fingertip-fulfillingfingertip feel. The the V8s. They always were most impressive brakesbrakes needneed commensuratecomm effort. As in these conditions. “The Silhouette is with the SE30, thethe Countach stays in that awesome on those sweepers and responds so monumental secondseco gear, and occasionally well to being driven hard,” Richard reckons. corner, with always enough lock on hand. third, and works up and down its rev range. “I needed to pinch myself: in front of me In the tunnels on the way up and down, the With a grin, Tadek says: “It’s certainly a was a Urraco and behind me a Countach, rich orchestration of the V8s, V10 and V12s driver’s car; you have to keep going to the and we are in the Alps.” is an utter delight. Sant’Agata has always gym to have the strength to drive it on an There are interesting differences and understood that kind of music. epic road like this.” similarities between the Urraco and the And so, next day, to the Gran San Glenn puts Alan Robb, who rates the Silhouette developed from it: lighter Bernardo. If you’ve never driven it, find a Murcielago SV highly, into his SV for the steering in the Urraco on conventional reason. Linger just past Saint-Oyen where climb. “In Corsa, I could lean on it and use Michelins against the Silhouette’s Pirelli the old SS27 veers off the new T2 to the the weight to set it up through the corners,” P7s; meatier feel in the Silhouette, a lower Tunnel. It’s here you’ll see the breathtaking Al says gleefully. “Left foot braking kept driving position and tighter seats; in both, Dardanelli Viaduct which the Miura drove it balanced, either using just the grip or modest oomph from the 3.0-litre V8 to across so evocatively in The Italian Job. pushing on to get the four-wheel drive to 3500rpm then a brisk climb to the 186kW As we gaze down onto it from one of the help. At one point, it was so eager and power peak at 7500rpm. SS27’s hairpins, the sound of Matt Monro confidence-inspiring I went into fourth and Strong directional stability, comfortable singing ‘On Days Like These’ – from the took the following corners as fast as I dared. ride and clean, dependable handling. Chris film’s soundtrack – wafts down the hillside Savouring every new push of power from Notley, able to stretch his Urraco’s legs as Richard cranks up the volume on the the V12 on the way to the redline on that for the first time, says: “It surpassed our Silhouette’s tape deck. road, with no traffic and perfect weather, expectations. It’s an elegant, remarkably In the Countach on the way to the top, goes down as one of my all-time great comfortable and surprisingly quick and it is fascinating to note the different feel drives.” This journey is kind of like that. economical sports grand tourer.” Our run and effect of two Lamborghinis 30 years On the Swiss side of the pass, the road finishes on the Route de la Forclaz/D1506 apart. The Huracan’s 5204cc V10 feels light is narrow and bumpy, and there’s often no from Martigny to Chamonix, another and snappy as it revs. The QV’s 5167cc V12 guard rail. Someone jokes that if you went cracker that provides the perfect ending to might have 115kW and 58Nm less, but the over the edge your clothes would be out of a perfect day. brawniness and linearity of its pull is an fashion before you hit the bottom. Towards And then it is the 1030km haul to Paris, addictive world all its own. Martigny the highway broadens into with the D979 on the way. Now that you The QV’s rack and pinion, heavier than sequences of fast, open bends that are meat encounter barely a car or truck there, it’s earlier Countachs’, demands muscle. The and drink to all the cars, but especially hard to imagine how busy this road was #1703, 09 March 2017, page 100.

ROOF DOWN, YOU WANT TO HEAR NOTHING BUT THE V10’S PANOPLY OF WICKED TUNES

COUNTACH (EXIT) AND SILHOUETTE (APEX) DEPARTED FROM URRACO’S BULL NAMING CONVENTION

before the Autoroute des Titans bypassed it All this makes long stretches like the to and from the Mont Blanc Tunnel. run up the A6 to Paris a pleasure. Loping I throw the Huracan at it, and just as along near , I smile when I see in with the Silhouette in 1976, it bestows the mirror a low, wide shape closing fast. immeasurable pleasure. In Sport, I switch It could only be an Espada. Richard and off the ESC and prod the V10 hard enough Lynne Bull’s immaculate Series III sweeps to make the tail creep in the tighter bends. past. It is in its metier. Earlier in 1976, But somehow that seems at odds with the I’d tucked away 1700km in 11 hours in an nature of the Huracan. Espada and know full well its ability on It’s properly fast and its Piattaforma open roads. Inerziale control system lets you access its After a night at Versailles, we have just pace with extraordinary ease. The three the 300km run up the A16 to Calais. Again, accelerometers and three gyroscopes shoot we are lucky: once we clear Paris, there is real-time high-speed data about roll, pitch little traffic and all of us can enjoy long- and yaw to the ESC, AWD, dampers and legged cars running freely. steering systems. Lamborghini’s R&D While we wait for the Eurotunnel train, boss Maurizio Reggiani says it lets the car I go over the fuel consumption. On the day get close to the point of no return while that the trip computer said the Huracan checking and controlling its attitude. had maxed at 268kph, its consumption was I like being able to drive as fast as I can 12.7L/100km. Overall, it is 12.1. with that kind of confidence, while having Pretty impressive. the option to switch off the ESC and get Most of the crew agree it’s been their physical if I feel like playing. best week’s driving. With the original Down this amazing road into the Ain Convoy! trip in my memory bank, could I Valley, there is an inhibitor though: under say that? This was a less intense experience brakes to the apex in the tighter hairpins, with more variety in a different kind of the pan under the nose scrapes the Lamborghini. Far more powerful than bitumen. A dashboard switch lifts the height even the Countach, very much faster, and for car parks and speed humps. notably more refined – and with a touch There isn’t a time when the Spyder’s of the Urraco’s sweetness – the Huracan ride foregoes any comfort. With sunny Spyder gave me a week of total, unalloyed weather all the way, the top is always down; joy. I only wish it had a bigger boot in the at serious three figure speeds, the cabin nose for more than two small carry-ons, and remains calm. I never use the radio; roof- better cabin storage. It’s so liveable in every down, you want to hear nothing but the other way, an admirable combination of V10’s panoply of wicked tunes. Hours at the grand tourer and hillclimb eater. wheel aren’t tiring. The pedals in the right- When I switch off in London after hand-drive cockpit are well aligned and the 2345km, I’m left with nothing but a hunger seat shape works well for my 176cm frame. to drive it more. The other drivers feel the But I do have the seat against the firewall, same about their cars so taller drivers mightn’t be so comfortable. It’s been a hell of a week. #1703, 09 March 2017, page 100.

CONVOY!