Here’s the proof that Lamborghini is not in a good condition financially. All production plans for the amazing four-door Estoque are canceled. What can we say but DAMNNNNN!
Unveiled at 2008 Paris Motorshow, the Estoque was Lambo’s idea of an ultimate saloon car. It was supposed to go into production in 2012 but now it’s on hold. Unlike what everyone thinks, it’s not their first attempt to make a four-door! Yes there has been another project many many years ago in cooperation with an Italian coachbuilder, we are currently researching that mysterious car and will have an article about it as soon as we found legitimate information.
The head of R&D at Santa Agata, Maurizio Reggiani explained that the timing and market condition is not just right for this car and under current circumstances, Lamborghini cannot afford to add another model line.
Lamborghini had only committed limited feasibility funding to the Estoque project. This means the car’s development was at an early enough stage for the firm to halt the project without a severe financial penalty.
The move is the first concrete evidence of Lamborghini’s serious rethink of its future strategy. At Paris Lamborghini said the Estoque could be powered by a V10, a turbocharged V8, a hybrid V8 or even a high-performance diesel engine.
However, company sources say the Italian car maker’s back-to-basics strategy will make dramatic weight saving a priority for future models, as well as possibly dropping turbocharging plans in favour of high-revving normally aspirated powerplants.
Reggiani is resisting pressure from a number of areas to introduce a DSG double-clutch transmission and says manual ’boxes could also be dropped.
He argues that Lambo’s current e-gear transmission (which is a conventional six-speed manual gearbox with an electro-mechanical shift mechanism) offers “the best combination of weight saving and mechanical interaction”.
Reggiani regards the typical DSG transmission as “too smooth” and lacking in the “sense of occasion and drama” that a Lamborghini owner wants. However, he says the next iteration of e-gear
will be “really surprising”.
In the short term, though, sources indicate that there will be a Superleggera version of the Gallardo LP560-4.
via: Autocar
