Lamborghini Gallardo LP 550-2 Valentino Balboni: It's official

The Lamborghini Gallardo LP 550-2 Valentino Balboni has been released in honour of Lamborghini Test Driver Valentino Balboni

Test drivers for companies like Ferrari and Lamborghini acquire legendary status amongst aficionados. Their input and skills determine, to a great extent, the feel of the car. Their job is to hone the car to perfection on their employer’s test track to extract the very best from their master’s latest creation. And at Lamborghini, Valentino Balboni has been honing Lamborghinis for over 30 years.

Our report on Monday on the leaked pictures of the latest Lamborghini – The Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 – was right in pretty much every way, but what we didn’t know was that Lamborghini had bestowed the ultimate accolade on their Veteran Test Driver by naming the new car in his honour. So this is officially the Lamborghini Gallardo LP 550-2 Valentino Balboni. So now the world, not just Lamborghini aficionados, know exactly who Valentino Balboni is. An honour indeed.

By ditching the four wheel drive Lamborghini have created a Gallardo that ‘reflects Balboni’s own thinking, creating a car with unique character’. Read that as ‘This is a drivers car’.

As we said on Monday, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that this Lamborghini delivers 550hp and – with a decent amount of weight shedding – manages 0-62mph in 3.9 seconds and on to a tick under 200mph.

The LP550-2 Balboni gets a new set of Scorpious wheels, revised suspension and a bold white and gold stripe right up the middle of the car, with the gold and white theme reflected in the interior as well. There’s a choice of eight exterior colours including Bianco Monocerus, Verde Ithaca, Arancio Borealis and Nero Noctis, The brake callipers come in either black, orange or yellow, depending on exterior colour choice. A transparent engine cover comes as standard, together with rear-view camera, SatNav and Bluetooth. Options include ceramic brakes and e-gear.

We were slightly off on the price on Monday. We’d guessed at £135,000 – undercutting the standard LP560-4 by around 10%. The UK price for the Lamborghini Gallardo LP 550-2 Valentino Balboni actually start at £137,900. But we were close. But we were right on its limited build run. Just 250 cars are going to be made.

Full details can be found in the Lamborghini Gallardo LP 550-2 Valentino Balboni Press Release.