PARIS SHOW: Sixth element Lambo Paris star

2010 PARIS MOTOR SHOW NEWS SPECIAL

Lamborghini has made an early pitch for star status at this year's Paris Motor Show with its astonishing Sesto Elemento concept car.

Besides its breathtaking exterior design, however. the carbon-based Sesto Elemento carries a far deeper meaning -- marking a turning point in modern supercar history by ending the power wars and starting a power-to-weight war. Incorrectly assumed by many to be the replacement for Murcielago LP640, the Sesto Elemento boasts an eye-popping 1.75 kg-per-horsepower power-to-weight ratio.

Enough to put it closer to the superbike class rather than the supercar class!

With an upgraded version of the Gallardo's V10 powerplant pumping out 570 horsepower, Lamborghini claims the concept will sprint to 100km/h in just 2.5 seconds. That's because almost everything in the Sesto Elemento is made from carbon-fibre. Even its name -- Italian for the Sixth Element, which is where carbon sits on the periodic table.

The key to all this performance -- and a top speed of well in excess of 320km/h -- is a kerb weight of 999kg, though Lamborghini President Stephan Winkelmann hinted cheerfully that this is a "conservative" weight and that it may hit the weighbridge even lighter than that.

"This car shows how the future of the super sports car can look -- extreme lightweight engineering, combined with extreme performance results in extreme driving fun," Winkelmann said.

"Systematic lightweight engineering is crucial for super sports cars for the most dynamic performance as well as for low emissions. We will apply this technical advantage right across our model range and every future Lamborghini will be touched by the spirit of the Sesto Elemento," he insisted.

Winklemann hinted that not only will the Murcielago replacement use a carbon-fibre chassis, similar in concept and production to the one underneath the Sesto Elemento, but the Gallardo replacement in two to three years could be a carbon-based life form as well.

"This is making the new DNA of this brand. Every decade the industry has something very big and this will be something big for us," Winkelmann explained.

"The power-to-weight will soon become the biggest thing for the supercar market, not the top speed or the power. That's why its engine and gearbox and the tyres are not made from carbon-fibre, but almost everything else is."

Not only does the Lamborghini concept run a carbon-fibre monocoque chassis 'tub', but its entire body, front crash structure, selected suspension and steering components -- and even the exhaust -- are made from carbon, too. Even the wheel rims are carbon-fibre.

The whole front end of the bodywork has been moulded racecar-style as one single piece of carbon-fibre called a 'Cofango' (which combines the Italian words for bonnet and fender panels). The entire rear bodywork is made the same way. Both pieces can be lifted off the car easily by one person.

"Sixty per cent of this whole car is one piece of carbon-fibre. There are no brackets on brackets on brackets. With carbon, you can design all of that into one piece and make it into shapes that aren't cost effective with metal, and that has enormous implications for weight and it has enormous implications for the accuracy of your production, too. There is a lot less that can be misaligned," Lamborghini claims.

In fact, the only significant metallic parts in the mid-engined Sesto Elemento, besides the engine, six-speed, paddle-shift gearbox and driveline, are the aluminium rear subframe and the steering rack.

While this seems like a sudden shift for Lamborghini, there 93kg of carbon-fibre in the current Murcielago's body-in-white, and the company built its first carbon-tubbed prototype nearly 30 years ago, back in 1983.

It now has two carbon-fibre laboratories: one in Sant'Agata and one outside Seattle in conjunction with Boeing and the University of Washington. It also has a new carbon-fibre factory geared up to build the Murcielago replacement and its first pilot build car ran down the production line more than a month ago, insiders have revealed.

While weight has been a big focus, Lamborghini's Technical Director, Maurizio Reggiani, insisted its handling would be like nothing on the market today.

"It will be phenomenally accurate to the driver's inputs," he insisted. "It will be like an open-wheeler racing car. The brakes are carbon and the suspension parts are all carbon, so they're unbelievably accurate and they connect to a stiff carbon chassis. And the parts are around 30 per cent lighter than aluminium parts, too," Reggiani told the Carsales Network.

"There will be nothing out there like it. And with less weight, it will change direction in a way that you won't believe unless you drive it. There will be no play in the suspension, no flexing, no inaccuracy at all. You ask it to do it and that's exactly what it will do, down to the width of a hair," he insisted.

The Sesto Elemento has been designed by thinking out of the box, too, Lamborghini Brand and Design Director, Manfred Fitzgerald, insisted.

There are no seat frames to add weight and flexibility. Instead, the seat base is shaped directly into the carbon tub and Lamborghini has added just cushioning and a backrest (made, naturally, of carbon-fibre). To get comfortable, the driver now electrically adjusts the pedals and the steering column.

Instead of a traditional alloy bracing beam inside the dashboard, the Sesto Elemento runs a thin carbon framework and the doors are made from just two pieces of carbon-fibre -- an inner and an outer skin -- and nothing else.

The shape takes clear elements from the limited-edition, Murcielago-based Reventon supercar, but makes even more of a feature of its deep front end, complete with a double-lipped spoiler. It's designed so that its front intakes draw in cooling air, then redirect it to the radiators and the brakes, which then exits either through triangular vents in the bonnet or in gate panels in the front guards, behind the wheels.

The heavily-crafted front end is in stark contrast to the rear, where there is virtually no overhang and, besides a diffuser, a bumper and a pop-up spoiler, the entire engine bay has been left open.

The V10 draws its air from two intakes in the roof, and there are ten cut outs in the polycarbonate engine cover -- one for each cylinder -- and there are two more bodywork holes for the radical exhaust system to exit. This is a first, because it's made of a carbon-ceramic powder in resin that is extremely heat resistant that has never been seen in the car industry before.

Most of the Sesto Elemento's carbon components are produced using a patented, low-temperature, low-pressure carbon-fibre manufacturing process, called RTM Lambo. It promises to make Lamborghini's carbon parts cheaper and faster to make than previous efforts from McLaren and Pagani. The RTM Lambo system means a Sesto Elemento chassis can be made in less than nine minutes, including its cooling time.

While Winkelmann insists the Sesto Elemento has "nothing to do with the next Gallardo," it is a lot more Gallardo in size than Murcielago. It carries over the full engine and gearbox of the Gallardo and still slides beneath the 1000kg barrier while using all-wheel drive.

While it's a running prototype, Winkelmann insists the Sesto Elemento is a long way from being a production car.

"It cannot be homologated this way today but we would like to work to this in the future," he admitted.

"Some of the technology is not fully tested everywhere in all conditions, like extreme heat and cold. It's still under development.

"We are pretty sure this will be the new material of the future. It uses a short fibre, so it can come from recycled fibres, too," he revealed.

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