"Lamborghini’s top brass swore blind at the launch of the Gallardo that there was no stripped-out Murcielago LP640 waiting in the wings. ‘The LP640 is wild enough,’ Stephan Winkelmann, Lamborghini’s president told Car Magazine. But he’s obviously changed his mind – as these pictures prove as evidence. Despite the impenetrable ring of secrecy surrounding the development of this new iteration – no one at Lamborghini will officially acknowledge its existence – sources claim the LP640 will not adopt the Superleggera name, but rather the more hallowed Superveloce badge. First seen on the last of the Miura P400 (the one without the eyelashes around its headlamps) and later on the Diablo SV (Sport Veloce which lacked the VT’s all-wheel-drive system).
Superveloce is Italian for high speed… Expect it to bow in at the Frankfurt Motor Show this coming September, wearing a brash £230,000 price tag.
Although the LP640 is due for a final swan-song power hike before its Walter de’Silva-penned replacement arrives at the turn of the decade, it’s thought that the LP640 SV will go on an extreme diet and rely on a lower kerb weight and shorter gear ratios to give it even more ferocious in-gear go from its mid-mounted 6.5-litre V12.
Like the Gallardo Superleggera, the LP640 SV’s curb weight will drop by an anticipated 100kg to 1565kg, boosting its power-to-weight ratio to 409bhp per tonne. Fitting carbon ceramic brakes, stripping the cabin of everything but the essentials and even using titanium wheel nuts (like on the Gallardo Superleggera) should easily take care of the necessary weight loss, but the LP640 SV will retain its all-wheel-drive layout.
The weight reduction comes from swapping out a number of components with carbon fiber bits, like the door panels, engine cover, wing, mirrors and the central tunnel covering. Lamborghini is expecting to loose about 100-150 kg with this operation giving the Superleggera a weight of 1500-1550 kg instead of the 1665 kg of the LP640.
Whether the gigantic wing in the back will be an option like on the Gallardo, or whether it will be standard is uncertain. But with power likely to be reaching 700 bhp and with the lighter body it can be expected that the Superleggera will reach a top speed of 350 km/h in which case it could use as much help as possible to keep it on the track."