A Lamborghini is its own universe

William Grimes (above), former restaurant critic for the New York Times, has been a sort of roving cultural reporter for the Times for the past year.

I find his pieces consistently amusing.

Yesterday's, on what it was like to tool around New York City in a brand-new $282,000 silver Lamborghini Murciélago, was especially entertaining.

For example: "By trial and error, I found that the ideal speed in a Murciélago is not 100 mph, it's 0 mph. Sitting at stoplights, I found myself thrust into a world of power, wealth and celebrity."

Here's the full story.
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Who's the Dude in the Silver Lamborghini? Yo, Bill Gates!

There comes a moment in every James Bond film, and every Bond book, for that matter, when 007 takes the wheel of a snazzy European sports car.

It might be the signature Aston Martin or, in the films, a Lotus Esprit, but either way, the setting always seems to involve a sinuous stretch of coastal road with a casino and a beautiful woman at the end.

Under a brilliant Mediterranean or Caribbean sun, Bond motors skillfully at top speed, one hand on the wheel, the other on the gear shift, his mind on the chemin de fer tables and a woman named Vesper or Domino.

Bond at the wheel made a deep impression on my young mind when the Ian Fleming books first came out.

The films only reinforced it.

For decades I dreamed of getting my hands on a top-flight Euro sports car, the kind of precision-tuned mechanical marvel that gives out a throaty, animal roar when a toe tickles the accelerator.

It never happened - until a few weeks ago, when I lowered my now middle-aged frame, creaking and groaning, into a 2004 silver Lamborghini Murciélago.

There's no question that the Lambo qualified for a starring role in my personal fantasy.

The specs on the car are almost ridiculous.

Twelve cylinders.

Nearly 600 horsepower.

Six gears, and a top speed of more than 200 miles an hour.

Set low to the ground, and nearly twice as wide as it is high, the car looks like a Toledo sword designed to slice through the atmosphere.

My first thought, on seeing the driver's-side door ascend vertically, was to abase myself, to bow down like Garth in "Wayne's World" and bleat out, "I'm not worthy."

By way of prep work, I had called up Jim Kaminski, the founder of the Lamborghini Owners Club of America.

I wanted advice on how to adjust my image, acquire the right fashions and, in general, project the alpha-male confidence that the car required.

The Lamborghini logo is, after all, a snorting, rampaging bull, and the Murciélago takes its name from a Spanish bull so brave that Rafael Molina, a 19th-century matador known as Lagartijo, spared its life.

Oddly enough, murciélago, in Spanish, means "bat," which means that Lamborghini's flagship model is, literally, the batmobile.

Mr. Kaminski, analyzing the appeal of the car, zeroed in on the engine.

Not the size, the torque or the horsepower, but the sound.

"It's sort of shrill," he said.

"And part of the thrill is hearing it go upward as you go through the gears."

Part of my sacred duty, when driving the car, would be to rev the engine at stoplights.

"You have to share that," he said. "People want to hear the car." I made a mental note to share whenever possible.

Lamborghini has thoughtfully recorded these sounds and put them on its Web site, www.lamborghini.com.

The Lamborghini image, it seems, is evolving.

The old-line Lambo owners like Mr. Kaminski tend to be car purists.

They like to work on engines.

They sneer at Ferrari owners.

"They're the kind of people who buy the car to put on display as garage art," Mr. Kaminski said.

"A lot of them wouldn't even know how to get the hood unlatched."

With the advent of the Murciélago, however, the lines began to blur, as image-conscious rock stars and sports celebrities, perhaps seduced by those scissor-style doors, lined up to plunk down the $282,000 sticker price.

The raging bull logo, once a cult symbol, has become common cultural property, as I soon found out.

My Murciélago came with a new feature, introduced last year on the Gallardo model.

It's a clutchless semiautomatic transmission that allows the driver to shift by flicking an aluminum paddle on either side of the steering wheel with the tip of a finger.

The right paddle is for upshifting, the left paddle for downshifting.

If the engine's r.p.m.'s drop below a preset level, the car downshifts automatically, and lazy drivers can press a button on the car's console to make the tranmission fully automatic.

After easing myself into the car, and adjusting to the idea that I was now a human projectile, I took stock of my surroundings and found them reassuring.

The controls are simple, even austere.

Putting the car in reverse is a little odd. You push a button on the dashboard.

And there's a button on the console that raises the chassis, making it easier to park, or to avoid scraping the bottom when negotiating an incline.

The sound system is appropriately spartan.

Who wants to listen to anything except the engine?

I thought about tuning in to NPR and stopped myself.

Would a Murciélago, gulping gasoline to eke out eight miles a gallon, even receive NPR?