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Image credits: © Lamborghini
Press Release
An emotional moment in Sant’Agata Bolognese yesterday at the
culmination of the gala celebrating Lamborghini's 50th anniversary:
Walter De Silva's incredible vehicle made its entry in front of a
thousand invitees, the Head of Design for the Volkswagen Group's homage
to celebrating the House of the Raging Bull's half century. “I am very
attached to this Italian brand, being an Italian myself. I wanted to pay
homage to and think up a vehicle to underline the fact that
Lamborghinis have always been made with passion, and with the heart more
than the head,” said an emotional De Silva.
Indeed the Egoista, as the vehicle has been christened, is a car forged
from a passion for innovation and alternative solutions, the same
passion which has always set the Lamborghini brand apart. “This is a car
made for one person only, to allow them to have fun and express their
personality to the maximum. It is designed purely for
hyper-sophisticated people who want only the most extreme and special
things in the world. It represents hedonism taken to the extreme, it is a
car without compromises, in a word: egoista (selfish),” De Silva
further explained.
The supercar's debut was equally spectacular, with a cinematic entry
announced by a trailer projected onto the nine big screens in the room.
The stage was transformed into a landing strip, with a top model in a
flight suit guiding the Egoista's arrival with ground crew light
paddles, and the roar of the V10 engine shaking the 20-meter-tall
tensioned event structure: this is the spectacle the VIP guests were
treated to when Lamborghini President and CEO Stephan Winkelmann entered
at the wheel of the Egoista, before inviting its creator, Walter De
Silva, to join him on stage.
Concept and technology
Powered by a 5.2-liter V10 engine supplying it with 600 horsepower,
the Lamborghini Egoista is an intentionally extreme and unusual vehicle
with absolutely unique characteristics, created by the Volkswagen Group
design team – Alessandro Dambrosio responsible for the exterior and
Stefan Sielaff for the interior, in particular. De Silva's team chose to
create a single-seater, pushing all the characteristics in
Lamborghini's make-up meaning pure driving pleasure, performance and
style beyond their limits. The cockpit, designed like a tailor-made suit
for the driver, is a removable section which, once combined with the
rest of the vehicle, creates a perfect technical, mechanical and
aerodynamic unit. Inspiration, as per Lamborghini tradition, once again
comes from the world of aviation, and in particular the Apache
helicopter, where the cockpit can be ejected in an emergency.
“The cockpit, made completely of carbon fiber and aluminum,
represents a sort of survival cell, allowing the driver to isolate and
protect themselves from external elements,” De Silva explained.“We kept
an eye on the future when designing the Egoista, with the idea that its
cockpit could have been taken from a jet aircraft and integrated into a
road vehicle, to provide a different travel option.”
The design
The exterior is characterized by two fundamental aspects: its
architecture, and the materials used. The design is determined by a
highly muscular structure, in which empty and solid areas fit together
with strength and vigor. The bodywork is dominated, on its sides, by the
stylized profile of a bull preparing to charge, its horns lowered. The
bull is driving towards the front wheels, conferring a futuristic
dynamism and lines which are already, in themselves, highly aggressive.
Naturally, this is a homage, a bold stylistic citation which can only be
a reworking of the Lamborghini brand icon, the well-known raging bull.
The challenge of efficiently inserting the Lamborghini symbol as an
integral part of the bodywork was met courageously and artistically. The
plan view reveals a trimaran profile, where the central hull forms a
unique section with the cockpit, underlined by the carbon-fiber cover on
the front hood.
The upper part of the vehicle does not have aerodynamic appendages,
but rather flaps integrated in the bodywork profile which act
automatically depending on the driving conditions. Two rear flaps
activate automatically at high speeds to increase stability, while a
series of air intakes on the back of the engine hood provides the
cooling air flow to the powerful V10 power plant. While the front of the
vehicle has a profile intended to increase downforce, the rear is fully
open with the mechanics in view, reducing weight but also with the
result of creating a more aggressive look. The Lamborghini Egoista's
lights are more like an aircraft's than a road vehicle's. It does not
have traditional headlights, rather LED clearance lights which determine
its position not just on a single plane such as the road, but rather in
three dimensions, as is required in airspace. Two white front lights,
two red rear lights, a red flashing light in the upper part of the tail,
two orange bull's eyes as side markers, and a further two lights on the
roof, red on the left and green on the right, make this four-wheeled
UFO unique even in the dark. Finally, hidden behind the front air
intakes at the base of the join between the central body and the two
side sections, are two powerful xenon headlamps, two eagle's eyes able
to scan the darkness for great distances. As it is made from lightweight
materials such as aluminum and carbon-fiber, the vehicle has no-walk
zones, duly marked like on airliners. The parallels with the world of
aeronautics do not end here, however, as the body is made from a special
antiradar material, and the glass is anti-glare with an orange
gradation. The rims are also made from antiradar material, flat and
rough, embellished with carbon-fiber plates to improve their
aerodynamics.
Interior
The cockpit's interior is extremely rational, its functionality taken
to the extreme. There is a racing seat with a four-point seatbelt, each
strip a different color, the airbags, and the bare minimum of
instruments. The focal point of these is a head-up display, typical of
jet fighters. To get out of the vehicle, the driver must remove the
steering wheel and rest it on the dashboard, open the dome with an
electronic command, stand up in their seat, sit down on a precise point
of the left-hand bodywork, then swivel their legs 180 degrees from the
inside of the cockpit to the outside of the vehicle. At this point they
can set their feet down and stand up. Even in getting out of the
vehicle, the Lamborghini Egoista requires a pilot more than a driver, a
real top gun.
The philosophy
The Egoista contains, in Walter De Silva's opinion, all the product
criteria which are part of Lamborghini's make-up. “It's as if Ferruccio
Lamborghini were saying: I'm going to put the engine in the back, I
don't want a passenger. I want it for myself, and I want it as I imagine
it to be. It is a fanatical vehicle, Egoista fits it well.”
If Lamborghinis are cars for the few, this one goes further. It is a
car for itself, a gift from Lamborghini to Lamborghini, resplendent in
its solitude. The Egoista is pure emotion, Never Never Land, which no
one can ever possess, and which will always remain a dream, for
everyone.
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