Last Lamborghini Gallardo charges from factory to history

After a decade-long production run, the Lamborghini Gallardo is a thing of the past. A really fast thing of the past, but alas, forever a thing of the past.

The final Gallardo, a red LP 570-4 Spyder Performante destined for a private collector, rolled off the line late last month in Sant’Agata Bolognese, the culmination of a production run of more than 14,000 cars since 2003, and which brought the niche super sports car maker to historic levels of output and, yes, income for parent company, Audi. To put it in perspective, Lamborghini has only produced 30,000 cars in its 50-year history, meaning that nearly one half of all Lambos ever built are Gallardos.

Even at the end of its run, the baby bull never got old, thanks to mid-cycle improvements and numerous model variants, including a convertible (“Spyder,” in Lambo-speak), lightweight “Superleggera” models and a variety of special editions, including two police cars currently in use by the Italian State Police. All Gallardos were powered by rev-happy V-10 engines and were almost entirely hand-built using aluminum spaceframe construction. Most featured all-wheel drive, though the two-wheel-drive LP550-2 model joined the lineup for 2011. In track-only Super Trofeo form, the Gallardo was the star of Lamborghini’s first ever single-make gentleman’s racing series, the Blancpain Super Trofeo, a series that will certainly live on, even if the Gallardo doesn’t.

Of course, there will be a successor, likely to appear early next year as a 2015 model. Names that have been kicked around include “Cabrera,” which would continue Lamborghini’s longstanding tradition of naming its sport cars after ferocious fighting bulls, and “Deimos,” the Greek god of terror and dread. Regardless of what Lamborghini calls it, do not expect it to be any less badass. And that’s no bull.