Gallardo’s Gone Wild

Posted on September 10th, 2009 by Hayley Myers

David and I were the photographers for a different kind of event Tuesday evening. Lamborghini has just released a special and limited edition of the Gallardo, dubbed the LP550-2 Valentino Balboni, after their very own living legend. Just 250 will be produced and all are rear-wheel drive, a first for Lamborghini in nearly a decade. Mr. Balboni travelled to Dallas Texas from Italy to unveil the new 2010 Lamborghini LP550-2 Valentino Balboni; and boy, was she a looker.

Valentino Balboni spent four decades as a test driver for Lamborghini. In fact, for several of those years, he was THEE test driver. Not only has Balboni been at the helm of every prototype Lamborghini since 1973, but most of their production cars got a quick spin around the farming streets of Sant’Agata with Valentino at the helm, just to make sure they were up to Lamborghini snuff. Still not clear as to why the man’s such a big deal? It’s believed that Valentino Balboni has driven 80% of all Lamborghinis ever made, and is the only remaining living person to have known Mr. Lamborghini. FACT.
Balboni, and for the record, I addressed him only as “Mr. Balboni”, appeared to be genuinely flattered that Lamborghini decided to build and name a car after him. In fact, he was beaming through the entire event. He explained in his short speech that while working for Lamborghini he was too close to the job, the day-to-day grind, to really appreciate how special his position was. But now that he’s retired, the specialness, the unbelievable luckiness of his previous position, has become crystal clear.
Balboni signed autographs and did a meet and greet after unveiling the de-robed orange monster. I was unbelievably amazed at the man’s patience, kindness, modesty, and aura.

I think that Valentino, I mean Mr. Balboni, is the kind of person one will never forget meeting. I have my signed Revento in the living room, ready to be encased and preserved forever.
After skimming through the events photos, I came to the conclusion that Balboni while being in the majority of every picture, was genuinely smiling with pride and pleasure in EVERY single image. Like I said, the man was beaming through the entire event, and from the looks of it, the beams were mutually returned.