Lamborghini @ Goodwood FOS
by David Gidman
It’s that time of the year again when all serious petrol heads
make the pilgrimage to the south coast of England for the
Goodwood FOS. This year was going to be an extraordinarily
special year for me as I had been given the enviable task
of doing the 550 mile round trip in the new Lamborghini
Huracan LP640 Performante. Gulp!
I truly could not believe that little old me had just been given the keys to
Lamborghini Manchester’s £230,000 Huracan Performante demonstrator
with 40 miles on the clock!
Setting off at 4pm on the Friday, I envisaged a frustrating sluggish rush
hour drive to Goodwood, but not when you are lucky enough to be
driving such an imposing beast. As soon as I slid into the carbon fibre
race seats and pressed the start button - I knew this was going to be one of
the most memorable journeys of my entire life.
I took a deep breath, composed myself and launched. By the time I
had done the 1.5 miles to the M60, I had the biggest smile on my face -
which lasted all weekend giving me jaw ache. I joined the M60 and it was
instantly like I had flashing blue lights on the front of the Lambo – literally
all of the cars in front of me just pulled out of the way to let me past and
then pulled back in with camera phones in hand to take snaps of their first
glimpse of the Nurburgring lap record holder. This was the script for most
of the journey to Goodwood. I lost count of the amount of thumbs up I
received on the journey.
108 wirrallife.com
By the time I got off the A3, I was deeply in love with the Performante.
I had never driven any car with the level of grip (that is developed by
Lamborghini’s new active aerodynamics ALA). You can actually feel the
extra downforce - 750% more than the standard Huracan, giving you
so much confidence that you feel almost invincible. The 20 mile cross
country drive to the 10-bedroom mansion in Petworth, which we’d rented
for the weekend was epic. The Performante just ate up and spat out every
single car it came up behind.
I reached Petworth House at exactly 8:30pm and Sean from HR Owen
London had heard me coming and came out to watch me reverse down
the side of the house. He started shouting for me to stop and come and
look at the rear of the car. My first thought was oh no what have I done?
I rushed to the rear of the car and my chin hit the floor with astonishment.
The catalytic converters were glowing red hot like two after burners
on a fighter jet. Amazing. I parked it alongside the other 2 Huracan
Performante Demonstrator’s and 2 Aventador S Demonstrators. Seeing
£1.3million of the most sought after Lamborghini’s parked together was
truly a sight to behold, I was slapping myself to make sure I was actually
awake.
Saturday morning at 7:30am was time for the HR Owen Lamborghini
convoy to set off to Goodwood. The yellow Aventador S fronted the pack,
then the matt grey Performante, followed by me in a yellow Performante,
then the green Performante and London’s white Aventador S bringing up
the rear. Our intention was to cause a massive impact at Goodwood and
boy did we get a reaction. On the drive to there I was mesmerised by the
glowing red afterburners on the matt grey car in front, then the flames
firing out of the yellow Aventador S. Nasa stuff!