Friday, September 19, 2014

Huracan Lamborghini

Lamborghini Gallardo has been the Italian automaker’s most successful car to date with a total production of 14,002 units in its 10-year life span. When it announced that the Gallardo was being retired, many said that the successor had big shoes to fill and would probably have to just as crazy as the Gallardo was when it was launched. It seems that after all the hype Lamborghini has not disappointed when it launched the Huracan LP 610-4 in April of this year. It is now bringing the car to India and will launch it on September 22.                                                                                                                                                                             Exterior
The Huracan has the signature low down Lambo design and has a very similar overall shape as compared to the larger Aventador coupe. It gets a low sweeping bonnet, with angular-shaped projector headlights which look like slits in what is otherwise a very smooth façade. The air intakes extend from the front of the car and are superimposed by the number plate holder. On the side, the roofline stretches downwards in both directions accentuating the image of the car sitting really low off the ground. There are a large amount of aerodynamic lines and thanks to the flared wheel arches as well as the large 18-inch wheels, the Huracan looks as planted as possible. The Huracan gets a smooth rear end which looks like an evolution of the Gallardo but thanks to the shape of the tail lamps looks more modern. There are four massive oval exhausts and twig shaped LED tail lamps and a massive lip spoiler which has been placed above a mesh cooling duct for the mid-mounted engine.                                                                                    Interior
The Huracan gets an interior very similar to that of the much larger Aventador but the layout looks a little more organised thanks to the wider size of the instrument cluster. There is a large array of toggle switches on both sides of the steering wheel while the paddles behind the wheel are massive giving the impression of an extremely busy area. If we observe the design, then we can see that the car is all about being driver oriented.he seats are racing buckets with contrast-coloured stitching and are mostly Alcantara while the rest of the dashboard is covered in leather. It gets all the luxury options including a touch screen infotainment system, climate control, electrically adjustable OVRMs, multiple airbags and to add to the drama, a launch control button with a flip up cover.





         Engine and gearbox
The Huracan is powered by a 5.2-litre V10 that produces 610bhp, 560Nm of torque and sends power to all four-wheels via a four-wheel-drive system and seven-speed dual clutch gearbox. The car can sprint to 100 kmph from standstill in 3.2 seconds and the 0 to 200kmph run can be done in 9.9 seconds with a claimed top-speed of 325kmph. The Huracan features stop-start technology as standard and has CO2 emissions as low as 290 g/km.                                                               

maruti cool ciaz ciaz

Maruti Ciaz is picking momentum despite the car not being available for display at showrooms. Maruti has received over 6,000 bookings for their new C-segment entrant and going by the response, the carmaker has preponed its launch from Mid-October to the first week of October to cash in on the festive season. It isn’t clear yet on the split between the petrol and diesel models but going by what dealers tell us, the numbers will be tilted heavily towards the Multijet diesel equipped Ciaz. The Petrol Automatic Ciaz too is finding quite a few takers, the reason being the Automatic’s ARAI certified mileage figure of 19.12kmpl according to dealers we spoke to. This makes the Ciaz the most efficient automatic in its segment. Maruti dealerships are accepting bookings at Rs 21,000 which is refundable just in case you don’t like the car once you see it in the flesh and drive it.

The Maruti Ciaz replaces the SX4 in the C-segment and takes on the Honda City and Hyundai Verna. Unlike the SX4, the Ciaz is more upmarket and comes with a lot more features this time round. These include projector headlamps, smartly designed 16 inch alloy wheels (15 inchers on lower spec variants), a touchscreen entertainment system that doubles up as a display for the rear parking camera, climate control, ABS and two airbags, rear AC vents, Bluetooth phone connectivity, push button stop-start system and more.

The Ciaz features the two engines from the Ertiga – the 1.4-litre K-series petrol engine developing 92PS/130Nm and the 1.3-litre Fiat sourced Multijet unit with 90PS/200Nm output. It falls short on power and torque against its competition but Maruti is playing the economy card here. The petrol Ciaz has an ARAI certified mileage of 20.7kmpl and the diesel posts 26.2kmpl making it the most efficient diesel car in India, at least on paper. Maruti has remapped the ECU for better throttle response in the petrol Ciaz compared to the Ertiga. 

The Maruti Ciaz comes with five speed manual gearboxes for the petrol and the diesel and a torque convertor automatic gearbox for the petrol. There’s no AMT for the Ciaz like Maruti has for the Celerio. Maruti has also introduced new trims with the Ciaz called the ZXI+ and ZDI+. Expect Maruti to comfortably undercut its rivals in terms of pricing.