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Tuesday, August 28, 2007

The Lamborghini Gallardo Police Interceptor

If wile driving along an Italian highway, you get spotted speeding by the police, lately your chances of managing to be away got a lot slimmer.
Not because you lack in driving skills, but because the Italian state police have just added the Lamborghini Gallardo to their fleet.

The Lamborghini Gallardo is powered by a 5 liters V10 engine, with top speed of 204 Mph, it cover the ¼ of a mile in less than 12 seconds, and thanks to the 500 Hp that it has under the hood, goes from 0 to 60 Mph in less than four seconds,
The Gallardo police interceptor is only used on highway, and mostly in situations when time is essential, in the Gallardo trunk, is located a kit for rescue equipment complete of a organ transplant box.

Another technological feature that other Lamborghini Gallardo’s does not have is a state of the art video system that transmits video images to the police headquarters.
Lamborghini donated the Lamborghini Gallardo police interceptor for the Italian state police 152nd anniversary, and the official cost of this car is $ 218.000.
That is why you will not be seeing too many of these around, but if you do, you’re better slow down.

During its inauguration tour of the city of Rome, it was literally surrounded by a storm of kids on vespas, begging the officer on the wheel to be arrested, and maybe I would have done the same thing if I were there, unfortunately, this Gallardo do not have a back seat.

The Lamborghini car company was funded in 1963 by Ferruccio Lamborghini, in the village of Sant’Agata Bolognese, just outside the city of Bologna, Italy.
Ferruccio Lamborghini originally owned a small tractor factory (Lamborghini Tractors), and his approach to the car business was sort of an accident, and began when he went to the Ferrari car factory to complain to Enzo Ferrari about the malfunctioning of the clutch of the Ferrari 250 GT that he owned.

Mr. Ferrari’s answer was that there was nothing wrong with his car’s clutches, and that he should stick to his tractors if he couldn’t drive automobiles.
Lamborghini did not liked the answer, went home, fixed the clutch by himself, and noticed that the clutch fitted on his Ferrari, was the same one fitted on his tractors.

That discovery made him realize that making cars was not that harder than making tractors, and that day Enzo Ferrari got himself his biggest competitor, even if he kept calling Lamborghini cars “luxury tractors”.
Lamborghini Car Factory is still located in the village where Ferruccio Lamborghini stated his adventure, and is now a subsidiary of the German car manufacturer AUDI.

Thursday, August 9, 2007

The 2007 Ducati Hypermotard 1100

Coming from a name known for sport bikes, this new release of Ducati Motorcycles stands out for its totally different concept. The Hypermotard is the type of bike adaptable to all sorts of terrains as well as urban streets and highways. The top speed exceeds the 125 Mph, not bad for a dual purpose.

Ducati motorcycles has always been known for their very successful sport bike production, and this first model of the completely new line. The design of this aggressive dual purpose motorcycle has nothing to do with what people is use to see coming out from the factory of this Italian maker. The Hypermotard is powered by a fuel injected, air-cooled Desmo two-valves powered engine that delivers 90 hp that comes traight from the Ducati racing technology.

The sport bike technology combined with an aggressive all terrain design, makes it a great bike for city use as well as off road, with a very comfortable riding position, that makes it very agile and easy to handle, and with accelerations and top speed that don't have nothing to envy to any sport bike.

The gearbox is a 6 speed, the front brake has mounted a 4 pistons, mono-bloc "Brembo", and a 2 pistons is mounted on the rear brake.
These features, combined with the only 390lbs of total weight of the motorcycle, makes the Ducati Hypermotard a very easy and enjoyable motorcycle to ride, especially on city and country roads.

The instrumentation of the Hypermotard has the same style of the Ducati Desmosedici; all digital with no switches or buttons to get in the way wile riding and giving a full view of all displays and a very clean look.

The control panel has also integrated the DDA (Ducati Data Analyzer) a system designed to gather and analyze data in real time, and is the same data analyzer mounted on the racing versions of Ducati bikes.

This gadget allows to gather data of fluids pressure, temperature and every single piece of information on the performance of the bike and display it in real time for the rider to read, from a remote location, and be recorded and stored for later evaluations.
The memory key and software for this feature are not included in the basic version and can be purchased at Ducati accessories.

Another very interesting feature of the Hypermotard is the unique design of the rear view mirrors that are attached to the outer edge of the hand-guards, and can be folded inward. The hand-guards also have incorporated the directional indicators and all bike controls, included the clutch and brake regulators, are operated from the hand-bar.

The Ducati Hypermotard comes in the basic versions, the 1100 and the 1100S, with a high technology suspension system that can be adjusted for any kind of driving condition.

All together this is a very good bike for everyday use in the city, but also for having fun in the weekends, definitely something people who like power on two wheels will appreciate try.