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Lamborghini Spyder Print E-mail
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Running of the Bull
Stretching the space-time continuum in the 2008 Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder

By Grant Davis

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Photo by Peter Dawson
Honestly, I felt like a coke addict in front of a pile of snow. There before me at the St. Regis Resort, south of Laguna Beach, California, was a couple million dollars’ worth of the latest Lamborghinis. A few 640-horsepower Murciélagos were parked front and center, surrounded by several of their more pedestrian cousins, the 520-horsepower Gallardos. Over the next three days, I was going to drive all of them.

Each year, as a lead-up to the Concours d’Elegance car show on the 18th green at Pebble Beach, Lamborghini hosts an invitation-only giro (this year, from Laguna Beach up the coast to Monterey) for its best U.S. customers and a handful of fortunate journalists. Apparently, this was my lucky year. The idea, best as I could tell, is to show us American pedal-stompers how to drive Italian style. That means tearing through Los Angeles congestion and sprinting down deserted mountain roads and cliff-hugging tarmac in a convoy of automobiles worth a fortune, reconvening for decadent lunches, and then, after more road time, meeting up at a resort each night to drink into the morning and talk about why not to own a Ferrari. (Answer: Anyone can buy a Ferrari; Lambos have a much longer waiting list.)

For the first leg, a two-hour circumnavigation of L.A. ending at a lobster house on the Santa Monica Pier, I was paired with a Lamborghini factory test-driver, a Mr. Fasanetto, in a $350,000 Murciélago Roadster. He drove first—thank God. If he hadn’t, there’s no way I would’ve known just how quickly a V-12 with 640 horses can shoot you around a tractor-trailer rumbling between you and an off-ramp.

Image Halfway through the outing, Fasanetto pulled over and told me to drive. So I did, quickly realizing that this was about as close to driving Formula One as I’d ever get. We growled along the heavily traveled freeway, and I finally grasped why people refer to Lamborghinis as “supercars.” I couldn’t help but feel endowed with superpowers as traffic literally parted, with cars veering aside to gape at our convoy. And there were cops, lots of cops. So many that I eased back from our 80-plus-mile-per-hour party and dropped my speed to legal. This made Fasanetto antsy, then quickly bored. Apparently, I’d failed the test for being worthy of piloting a Murciélago.

At lunch I learned from the Lamborghini owners that dealing with the police is usually a fifty-fifty proposition. Half of the time, all the cops want to do is check out your car. The other half of the time? Simply put, the typical Lambo owner probably pays out more for speeding tickets and insurance than most people make in half a year.
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