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It wasn't to be so. Originally, it was supposed to be a drive in a Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 from Chandini Chowk to the gates of the upcoming F1 track at Greater Noida. A visual heavy story, celebrating India's big leap into the world of spent fuel and carbon fibre, of scrambelled air waves and huge Scania team bigrigs. But then, one thing led to another and the LP560-4 turned into a last generation Blu Caleum Gallardo 520, menacing nevertheless but it couldn't be taken out of Delhi's 'under'belly. That immediately meant shifting into a Plan C, which in <I>BSM<I> terms means trying to find something to 'go along with it', and of course completely unplanned. Raj Kapoor, ex-Rallyist, a Storm junkie and a dear friend suddenly found himself on the wrong side of the bed one Saturday morning, trying to convince his client to come along with his car for a memorable shoot. Everything was being worked out in a state of semi-consciousness and I couldn't gauge the severity of the event, until Anant, Raj and said car, the 1982 Lotus Esprit Turbo turned up to pose for shots next to the Gallardo.
From all angles and aspects, this was supposed to be another unintentional story with a supposed angle constructed around the event. But it seemed that day, fate had something else in store for me. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect mating of supercars than these, even though they were the only two available to me that morning in the whole of New Delhi. How else do you explain the presence of two 1. mid-engined supercars built by 2. two firms that have had more owners than Tiger Woods has had mistresses and in one case 3. being penned by two renowned designers, Marcello Gandini and Giorgetto Giugiaro who at one point even 'allegedly' worked on the same car - the Lamborghini Miura.
Twenty five years separated the two as the fog started to lift and the sun's rays tore through the dense air, and yet one of them looked like the veil of time hadn't troubled its achingly stunning lines - the other only looking to head down the same path. The Gallardo may not be anything like yesteryear, pre-VAG Lambos with their horrible electricals and reliability issues that were more 'explosive' than the Gaza strip. It doesn't even have some wild body kit, a post-box sized rear window and the winner of the best cloth hanger of the year - the Countach's rear spoiler. Heck, if anything, it can't hide its newfound Aryan engineering ethos and yet it's as Italian as it can be. It's like a newer avatar of the folded paper design concept, first brought to the fore by the Countach and then Giorgetto's Esprit. It's what most kids would scribble in the back pages of their math books today as their supercar and because this is the pre LP560-4 it's also the purest of the form with none of the LED gimmickery and you still have those large square tail lamps that characterise the rump and make the car look squat.
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