Lamborghini Urraco review
Lamborghini Urraco 2.5 V8 Road Test
Test date 14 September 1974
Price as tested £9,565
For Well engineered, exciting, superb roadholding
Against Noisy, poor gearchange, costly, moderate performance
Just as it did in racing over a decade ago, the swing towards the mid-engined configuration has led to some fundamental re-thinking by the designers of the world's fastest and most exotic roadgoing sports cars.
Having changed the total concept of their cars in the interests of weight distribution, roadholding, traction and steering response, they began to look to the merits of sophisticated suspension design, of light weight, and overall compactness as a way of building cars of very high performance but not necessarily great size, nor with huge and thirsty engines.
Each of Italy's major specialist car manufacturers has its supercar, built to satisfy the small but ever-present demand for the ultimate sports car. These have engines of at least 4-litres or more, located in the midships position, and two-seater bodywork of - by the standards of a few years ago - modest dimensions. But perhaps the more significant development of recent years has been in the next generation down; the cars which Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati have built in search of a wider and cheaper - though scarcely commonplace - market.
It is here that the 308GT4, Urraco and Merak meet head on. Not much smaller physically than their supercar cousins, all three have vee-configuration engines of less than 3 litres. And, as so often happens in racing, the desire to adopt a certain mechanical layout, plus mimicry of rivals' good ideas - and the close knit nature of Italy's freelance stylists - has resulted in cars which not only share similar specifications and can be expected to have fairly similar performance, but also look remarkably alike.
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