LAMBORGHINI DIABLO PROTOTYPE
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DEMON DIABLO
Article by Roberto Giordanelli
Photos by Peter Collins

Roberto Giordanelli meets the bloke with the best job in the world

It was thirty years and one day since Lamborghini test driver Valentino Balboni started work at the Sant' Agata factory. That evening, he was looking forward to a big party being held for him by his family and friends. Trained by his equally legendary predecessor, Bob Wallace, Balboni looks like an ordinary person. "Never judge a book by . . ."

Eye-opening as it was, this was no normal factory visit. This was special - very special. My time in a Prova-plated prototype Lamborghini Diablo with test driver Balboni was a memorable and unexpected bonus. Already labelled by BBC Top Gear as "The bloke with the best job in the world", Valentino Balboni's test drive was an experience that linked the laid-back attitudes of the past with the awesome technology of the future. When I say "past", I refer to the UK's past when Jaguar D-Types and AC Cobra racing cars were tested on the public road. In Italy this still happens; maybe not with pure racing cars but it does with Supercars. The public's attitude is different. The test drivers are cheered and encouraged by the locals - most of them anyway. And when I say "future", I don't mean creeping around in silent, automatically controlled, electric pods, I mean the next generation of refreshingly anti-social, politically incorrect, 1,000bhp Supercars.

If you are familiar with Sant' Agata's history, think of what happened to me as a modernday version of Bob Wallace using the Miura Jota to scare the pants off journalists. Apart from being absolutely convinced that I was about to die, the difference here was that I also piloted the prototype!

With renewed outside interest in Lamborghini, and especially from Volkswagen, the Indonesian/Malayan owners are ready to reduce their share by 20%. Currently controlled by Managing Director Vittorio Di Capua and Italian staffed, Lamborghini turned a previous year's loss into an operating profit last year of $4.2 million, making future investment for new models like the "Baby Diablo" look good. Di Capua came to Lamborghini with 40 years experience from Fiat. His last 15 years were as the Managing Director of the Fiat Bank.

Recently, Lamborghini came third (behind Ferrari and Porsche) in a worldwide poll of the public's perception of prestigious sportscars. It is healthy to see a local competitor keeping Ferrari on their toes; although I doubt whether the Pope who visited the Ferrari factory, could come to Lamborghini and bless a car called "Diablo".

Before our test drive we were treated to an unrestricted walk around the factory with our guide Alberto Almarolli, to see how Diablos are made, damaged customer cars being repaired and classic Miuras being restored. VT (4wd), SV and Roadster are the principal models. Diablos start life as lengths of various sized, square steel tubes. These are welded together in a jig to form a framework which is further strengthened by welding in the steel sheets that make up the floors and bulkheads. Almost everything is made in-house, an exception being the aluminum wings which are pressed 'down the road'. In-house composite panels are fitted (sill, bumpers, lids, etc.) to finish the shell. A small production line fits all the other bits, with paint rectification being the final job. Effective? Yes. Efficient? Well, take the crankshaft making machine; a huge modern machine that could spew out a mountain of twelve-cylinder cranks in a nanosecond. With only a handful of cars produced each week, the cranshaft machine has a pretty easy life. They even have a new oven for curing their composite panels which is capable of 'cooking' a whole monocoque!

It takes 500 hours to build a Diablo and each engine is run in for 5 hours before installation. The Company know that they cannot build the "Baby Diablo" in any significant numbers with this type of production. But they can build the "Super Diablo" - the coming 6-litre, over 600bhp, 6-speed (is that a devil with 3 sixes?), dry-sumped, Zagato styled Supercar. Keen to adopt new technology, current Diablos are deing installed with satalite linked data-recording black boxes which can be downloaded anywhere in the world for self diagnosis. A record of each car's full technical history; temperatures, pressures, revs, missed gearchanges, etc. is always available. Diablos are homologated worldwide and the new ones are also getting 4-position damper controls with a lift position for uneven surfaces. Switchable four-wheel drive, switchable traction control and switchable ABS are also coming together with acres of carbon fibre interiors for those who want the sporty black stuff.

The purple, Prova-plated, prototype Diablo awaiting our test run is a mobile test bed. Externally it sports older style engine cover, etc. but underneath it is special. The engine, a development of the 530bhp SV, drives through a normal 5-speed transmission with switchable (rwd) traction control. Brakes are switchable ABS with the enormous Brembo drilled discs and calipers from the racing SVR series. Its interior trim is in lightweight carbon fibre and gigantic 18 inch diameter wheels (13 inches wide at the rear) sport 335/30ZR18 Pirelli P Zero rubber.

Wearing timeless pale blue overalls that only Italians could have designed, Balboni jumped into the passenger seat, as I had already claimed to driver's seat. As we trundled out on to the narrow country roads, I was quite happy to have a minder on this occassion to stop me doing anything silly. The sheer width of the Diablo was always a worry on these narrow roads. The nearest you will find to these in the UK are located in the area that time forgot - the fens of Cambridgeshire and Norfolk. The prototype Diablo gobbled up the traffic like a shark in a kiddies' paddling pool. Short careful bursts, remembering the width of the car and the narrowness of the road, were all I dared. The wide rubber, the road camber changes and the slightly vague steering made it tricky for me to place the car accurately. With 0-60mph available in 3.5 seconds and a 200+ mph capability, seriously fast speeds are literally only seconds away. There were two things on my mind. Firstly, if you did not know what you were doing, you could do a lot of damage with one of these. And secondly, I did not want to frighten Balboni or get myself a bad reputation. We cruised around and spoke of 'The Old Man' (Ferruccio Lamborghini), what a good boss he was and how he spoke in 'dialect'. He told me about Bob Wallace and how he trained the young Valentino Balboni. Whe the subject turned to Miuras his eyes lit up. These were his first 'test drives'. He loved it when we got all technical about how the Miura SVs were all different. "How many had limited slip diffs?" I asked, "Hardly any. . . ." We could have spoken for hours. After a while he suggested that we change places as it would 'look better' if he was seen to be driving the purple prototype back through the factory gates.

I hould have smelt a rat when he insisted on strapping me into the passenger seat's full harness belts. An Italian insisting on seat belts is as rare as an American atheist. If there were any rats in that Lambo. NOW was a good time to get out. Balboni went ballistic. I cannot describe what he did without sounding as boring as a polieman. The speeds he attained, the traffic he dispatched, his accuracy, his judgement and daring were astonishing. Had I not been wearing seat belts, the stopping power of this prototype was so enormous that I would have been mashed against the dashboard as he hurtled up to the back of slow-moving (50mph) traffic. I had simply been strapped in to stop me flying around the car's interior. As we thrust into certain head-on pile-ups, thoughts of the crash-test cars I had seen round the back of the factory came to mind. Was I about to find out how a crash-test dummy feels? No, all that happened was a few headlamp flashes and waves of encouragement from the locals. I had survived. We gently rumbled back into the factory, Valentino Balboni calmly stepped out and - like and ordinary bloke - said "Arrivederci" as he went off to his party. Nice one. My jaw is still gaping.

Text and photos courtesy of