Lamborghini Diablo
Lamborghini Diablo
Putting every kind of car imaginable through our tire-squealing, sheetmetal-quivering, eyelid-fluttering performance tests is, as you can imagine, more fun than finding out your fiancee’s parents have a large Ferrari collection that needs regular exercise. But every so often, particularly with cars named after, oh, the devil, there emerges at the test track a potential for mechanical hara-kiri that verges on the terrifying.
Such was the case recently when we flew to Milan, Italy, to test the latest Lamborghini Diablo VT (the VT indicates the four-wheel-drive version). This last Diablo in a decade of flamboyant–some daresay outrageous–sports cars first introduced in 1990 is certainly the best Diablo.
The VT is, curiously, a very high-powered four-wheel-drive beast. Situated amidships is the biggest, baddest V-12 engine we’ve ever tested in a Diablo. For this 2000 model, Lamborghini has lengthened the stroke by 0.16 inch, lightened the crankshaft, used lighter and stronger titanium connecting rods, and updated the old 16-bit engine-control system to a more powerful 32-bit unit. As a result, peak engine output has been promoted to 543 horsepower at 7100 rpm, 20 more than found in the last Diablo. Torque is up 11 pound-feet to 457 at 5800 rpm. Horsepower freaks take note: This latest Diablo now has more horsepower than four four-cylinder Toyota Camrys. (Hey, where else can you get these vital comparisons?)
Despite the fact the rear tires–Z-rated Pirelli P Zeros, good for more than 200 mph–are so wide that, at first glance, they appear to form a solid rolling pin of rubber across the rear of the car (they’re 13.2 inches wide), 543 horses and 457 pound-feet of torque can reduce them to pudding. To counter that possibility, the Diablo VT’s four-wheel-drive system makes perfect sense. A viscous coupling transfers power to the front wheels if the rears slip; the rest of the time, the Diablo prowls about as a rear-drive car. At most, 28 percent of engine torque is routed to the front wheels. There are no levers to switch or buttons to punch to engage this four-wheel-drive system, and during routine driving, you’d never know this wild Italian was a four-wheeler.
Perform a drag-strip launch, however, and you’ll instantly realize the Diablo VT is not a rear-driver. Usually, those of us who drive in hard acceleration tests rely on a touch of wheelspin to get the car moving in the quickest manner. In a four-wheel-drive car with sticky tires, it is almost impossible to get those rears spinning in a hard launch, unless the car has a system that allows some initial rear wheelspin before the fronts get the juice. An example of one such car is the 1997 Porsche 911 Turbo S. Hold the gas pedal down to create 4500 rpm in that sports car, then drop the clutch, and the rear tires will spin for a moment before power is directed to the front wheels; the tires dig in and you’re off. In that Porsche, we’ve recorded 0-to-60-mph blasts in an amazingly fast 3.7 seconds.
Article Source: caranddriver.com
