I took a Lamborghini Diablo for a drive today
 

Awesome good fortune on my part, I'm in a strange town on business, 1000 miles from home and I've made an arrangement to meet a fellow NSX owner whom I've only known online until now. I get settled in my hotel and get his address & directions and jump in my car headed his way. The last line of his directions is "you'll see my NSX and some other cars". I know he has a white NSX with a black roof so off I go.

When I pull up to his place, I couldn't help but notice there was bright yellow Lamborghini Diablo VT 6.0 in his driveway.
http://sarasotadetail.com/gallery2/d...2/IMG_5414.jpg

To make a long story short, he's car sitting for a friend and we got around to taking it for a spin. At some point during that spin, he asked if I wanted to drive. No let me ask you this, how many answers are there to that question? :)

So I drove the beast maybe 15 miles - about half back roads and half highway. I took it pretty easy (duh) but still found myself at 90 mph without realizing how I got there. While he was driving he did several pulls through 1st & 2nd. It has head-snapping response and the sound was sweeeeettt.

Here be me.
http://sarasotadetail.com/gallery2/d...2/IMG_5428.jpg

The seats were supportive, but hard. I think my NSX seats are better. I wasn't crazy about the cluster, either. I want a bigger tach.
http://sarasotadetail.com/gallery2/d...2/IMG_5420.jpg

This car is carbon. fiber. everywhere. Everywhere.

That is just badass.
http://sarasotadetail.com/gallery2/d...2/IMG_5418.jpg

Gotta get some NSX love in. I danced with the Diablo, but I took the NSX back to my room. ;)
http://sarasotadetail.com/gallery2/d...2/IMG_5427.jpg

This car has 120K miles on it and is perfect from end to end.
http://sarasotadetail.com/gallery2/d...2/IMG_5423.jpg

That's all. Just had to brag a little.
http://sarasotadetail.com/gallery2/d.../IMG_5426a.jpg

sweet!! that's a nice car!

Lucky you. I've driven some very fine cars before but nothing at that level.

Wow, you're a lucky guy. Not many of us would even get a chance to sit in a Lambo let alone drive one. Hell, most of us will never sit in an NSX either! so you're a doubly lucky guy.

Sweet ride, had a poster of the Diablo when I was a young'n. That gated shifter scares me though. Looks like it'd be real easy to miss a shift and put it in the wrong gear.

Badass... Simply badass. You are one lucky dude.

I had the same thought. I sat in a Diablo once, and I coulda sworn it had a normal stick.

ALWAYS a sweet car, tho. Lucky man. :)

The gated shifter does seem counter-intuitive to smooth shifting until you try it. Keep in mind that the linkages and bushings/bearings controlling where you can move that stick are very precise, not some kind of sloppy rods or cables flopping around. Also, in case you don't know, other than the recent paddle shifter designs, all the Ferrari manual trannies also have that kind of tightly gated shifter; as have many highly bred performance and racing cars over the years. Many experts and owners regard the Ferrari and Lamborghini transmissions right up there near the epitome of shifting heaven, not necessarily "the best" but one of the best, so obviously the gated stick is not a significant detriment.

I got to drive a Maybach a few years back.

It still boggles my mind that the sunroof on it costs $25,000.

It's one of 3 cars that I've driven where I've put my foot on the gas and a bit later looked at the speedo and realized I was going well over 100 mph. In the case of the Maybach I got it up to 150 with no problem.

But it, the Maybach is the very definition of excess and not in a good way.

Yeah, about that gated shifter. I don't like it, but my friend assured me that after driving it an hour or so, it would seem quite natural. I will say that finding the gear I wanted without looking was easy enough. Still, I'll take the shifter in my NSX any day.

The other weird thing about the Lambo shifter is 1st gear is down on the left where most of us would expect 2nd gear. Again I'm sure I'd get used to it, but it seems kind of pointlessly different.

Good for you - looks like it was a fun 15 minutes for ya!! ;)