German Car Zone

Background

Sorry it’s taken me a long time to write this.

I decided to hire something exotic for a weekend of fun in August. What started out being an Audi R8 eventually progressed to a different Audi. A Lamborghini Gallardo. I hired it from this company near Windsor: Ferrari Hire | Sports Car Hire | Super Car | Aston Martin | Bentley | London

First Impressions

I arrived at the premises to find the yellow Gallardo waiting for me in the car park. It looked stunning. It’s amazing to say that I thought it made the Ferrari F430 Spyder parked next to it look ordinary. I think yellow is a perfect colour for the car. The car itself was 3 years old and with 13,000 miles on the clock looked in good condition. After the paperwork was completed I was given a thorough brief on all the systems and switches and shown how little luggage space there was! Actually, it wasn’t bad as you could find little storage spaces here and there and improvise a bit. There was the official space of the boot in the front of the car, which wouldn’t take my standard rollerboard size suitcase, but this did fit in the space behind the seats.



First few miles

After a two to three second turnover the 5.0 litre V10 erupted into life. Wow. With the engine being so close behind you there certainly is no doubt as to the nature of the car you’re sat inside. Selecting first gear and gently brushing the throttle pedal, the car moved off quite sedately. Up to 4,000 rpm the engine really didn’t change it’s sound, the note being quite sporty but not overtly loud. However, a few minutes later and the chance to break free of the Friday teatime traffic allowed me to push beyond 4,000rpm. Then…..erm…..all hell broke loose. The valves in the exhaust system opened up and the noise was nothing short of sensational. If I hadn’t been to an F1 race in person I would swear this must be what the cars sound like in reality. OK, the F1 cars are still about three times louder. The noise was certainly addictive. As I got more used to the car I pushed a little bit further up the rev range. The E Gear system was frankly, terrible. Firstly the paddles are fixed to the steering column as opposed to turning with the wheel. Why? It wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d had a stick in the central area to change gear but it didn’t have one. The change was also very clunky, and especially so for someone like me who is used to the smoothness of the M DCT gearbox in the E92 M3. I did go back to my years with an E46 M3 with SMG II and found that if you feathered the throttle as you changed it made for much smoother changes. However, forget to feather, which I did many times at first, then the jolt was neck snapping and made you look like a complete amateur, which I was.
The steering was very heavy, the brakes completely rubbish at low speeds, giving no feedback or any confidence that the car was going to stop. It felt like a two tonne SUV at anything below 40mph.
Within ten miles I came upon my first issue with driving a supercar. A restricted width road just before the entrance to a bridge in Marlow. It was five pm and the traffic was backed up behind me as I got out to see if I could negotiate the kerbs. I could see that the car would fit, but only just, and I would have no hope of getting it through with my restricted view from the drivers seat. I was stuck now, and not able to reverse due to the traffic behind me. The woman behind me was playing hell, so I got out and told her that I wasn’t from the area and would she mind backing up a bit so I could turn around. As I was doing this, a passer-by offered to help me through. Nice guy, and typified the reaction I had to the car for the whole three days it was in my possession. It was still a bit of a tough job though. Like landing a 747 on your front lawn. And I still had the other side to negotiate which I did in the same manner. I’d found out pretty early that my weekend with the Lambo was going to be far from smooth!



The Cabin

One of the things I thought I might be disappointed with was the fact that there is extensive use of Audi switchgear in the cockpit. In reality this proved to be unfounded as a) the Audi switchgear is very good quality, and b) the Lambo is about so much more than the interior that the buttons just become exactly what they are….buttons for turning things on and off. The noise, the feel of the steering, the throttle response all combine to make it such a special experience that the other aspects become irrelevant. The driving position for me was perfect. I’m average height but with quite short legs and I fitted perfectly without much adjustment of the seat. The equipment levels were quite high, consisting of all the expected items and also sat nav. There were a multitude number of dials for every possible measurement, oil temperature, oil pressure, coolant temperature, voltage charge etc. The view from behind the wheel is very cool indeed. Low, and it feels like your driving from inside a pillar box. The rear view wasn’t too bad and probably as good as you could probably expect from this kind of car.



After One Hundred Miles

Some people only hire the car for this amount of miles, and after driving along the A44 to Worcester, I realized they are missing out completely. It takes at least one hundred miles before you even get close to being comfortable enough to drive it like it’s meant to be driven. And when you do you realize the car makes perfect sense. The steering becomes incredibly direct and responsive, the brakes now work much better with more heat in them, the suspension, instead of being very harsh, now becomes perfectly measured for taking bends at silly speeds. Even the E gear becomes easier to use when going beyond 8,000rpm.
The attention the car got was beyond comprehension. No matter where you were people would stop what they were doing to look. People would go out of their way to get closer. I did expect some unwanted attention caused by envy but I didn’t encounter that at all. Instead people gave thumbs up, they let you out at junctions straight away, they even gave you an extra wide berth as if to combine a feeling of respect with the consideration that you might like a bit of extra space. I’m not sure I would have had that with an F430 Spyder. Driving through small villages almost brought them to a standstill. In traffic a car next to me had two young boys grinning from ear to ear whilst their mum smiled at me and giggled a bit. Driving into a residential cul-de-sac on a Saturday afternoon had about ten boys on bikes chasing me down the road to see where I parked followed by hundreds of questions about “how fast it went”. It reminded me of when I was their age.



After Four Hundred Miles

By now I was used to the gear change, the throttle response, the width of the car, the visibility. I had a one hundred and thirty mile drive to do from the Midlands to London on a mixture of fast A roads and motorway. It was brilliant. The levels of grip this car achieves is nothing short of mind blowing. The acceleration is also similarly amazing. On paper it shouldn’t have been THAT much faster than the E92 M3, but in reality it felt far, far quicker. The fact that you’re so close to the action with the engine right behind your ears and so low down helps, but it wouldn’t take much effort to break speeds which would be an instant ban and possibly jail sentence.



Final Thoughts

I spent the last twenty miles driving through the streets of London on a warm Sunday evening, the sound of the V10 bouncing off the buildings, wondering where it all went wrong with my life. Joking aside, I did review the previous four hundred miles and my first conclusion was that what was supposed to be a one-off treat was actually good value for money.

Fuel consumption for the whole weekend over 447 miles was 14.1mpg, as measured accurately by a human as opposed to a computer.

The car is alive. There are constantly new noises coming from the engine and gearbox, which over three days gives the Lambo character, but if I owned the car I think I would be a nervous wreck for fear it was about to blow up at any given moment.

I absolutely dreaded getting back into the M3 on Monday morning. However, having driven the Lambo all weekend actually made me appreciate my M3 even more. You see, you get 80% of the performance of the Lambo with only 20% of the hassle. And I wasn’t expecting that conclusion at all.

Very good read!

Very well detailed, straight to the point!

Thanks very much

A really good read mate. I must admit, that conclusion of yours isn't far off, especially if you're a true car guy. It goes hand in hand with why smaller cars like the Miata are so fun to drive.

It basically comes down to the fact that what separates these cars is how often you push it. On a normal day to day drive and even the occasional tunnel blasting and fast curving highway on/off-ramps, the normal performance cars are good enough. The Lambos and Ferraris are more of a weekend car really. Sure, you can drive them everyday but that just makes them your everyday beater cars.

That's why supercars are, in reality, rarely daily drivers. You have written a very honest article and I completely agree! Coincidentally I also wrote something about supercars, going to supper this time. Might want to take a look.

Yeah, great read. Thanks.

Thanks for the write-up Betty - a really good one - I enjoyed it very much.