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Whenever I see an Alfa Romeo drive by,” said Henry Ford, “I tip my hat.” If I wore a hat, I’d also tip it at any Lamborghini that drives by. Since I don’t, I usually just smile to myself or maybe even applaud the driver lightly.
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Thank God there are Lamborghini owners in the world, bringing these absurdist performance artworks, this automotive pageantry, out onto the streets for the rest of us to enjoy.
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Lambos are the perfect riposte to po-faced Ferraris and overpowered German executive saloons, and no matter how good the day already is, it improves on the appearance of a Lambo.
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Here''s a new one, the Aventador: 6.5 litres of V12 pumping Italian piston power shrouded in a body built from carbon fibre and aluminium, and then artfully arranged on double-wishbone and pushrod racecar suspension.
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Nice, isn''t it? I''ve got the fizz. Being a Lamborghini means it''s a supercar and therefore rather useless, but as Ovid told us, that may simply make it art.
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Anyway, the Albert Memorial is useless, and we''re quite happy with that.
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I must say it''s a long time since I studied the shape of a new car like I did this Lamborghini''s.
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In broad terms, it''s very Lamborghini-shaped: cab forward, long wheelbase, a fat arse and a general sense of bulk at the rear tapering to relatively bugger-all at the front.
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The windscreen is steeply raked and makes only a token effort at levelling out for that bit in the nose where you put your ‘soft overnight bag''.
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The more you look at it, though, the more interesting it becomes. The back seems to have been inspired by some kitchen implement designed to cut vegetables into interesting patterns.
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In fact, the whole car is based around a simple and infinitely variable stylistic theme that is technically a plumped-up quadrilateral, but that we''ll call a lozenge.
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For the musically inclined, this basic lozenge shape is like the subject of a Bach fugue. The more you listen, the more you notice it cropping up where you didn''t notice it last time.
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It''s in the wheel spokes, the lights, the various vents and ducts, the glass slats over the engine bay, the mirrors, the stalks the mirrors are mounted on, and so on and so on.
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There''s always another detail springing from lozenge philosophy waiting to surprise you.
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Look, for example, at the curious and delicious relationship between the rear wheel and its arch. The wheel is necessarily round, but the arch isn''t a regular curve.
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It''s been corrupted slightly by The Lozenge. It''s wonderful.
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There''s the odd departure as well, such as the way a rear haunch appears from the three-quarter angle. It looks like a damp dock leaf draped over the hip of a naked supermodel.
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