Blog Posts by: Ronald Ahrens  

The Italians had received us as heroes during the Grande Giro’s four previous days, and now Bologna gave a heroic backdrop for the tour’s finale. Our 350 Lamborghinis looked stunning in the city’s Piazza Maggiore and adjacent Piazza Galvani, improbably blazing blue, red, yellow, orange, purple and even pink amid ...    Read more

When the Grande Giro rolls through Italian villages like Orvieto and towns like Pianoro, even the old women, heads covered with steely curls, thrust out their fists, low and powerful, which is the peoples’ way of demanding that Lamborghini drivers rev their engines. With no introverts among us, we are ...    Read more

On today’s leg of Lamborghini’s 50th-birthday Grande Giro, it became evident we were finally nearing central Rome by the engine covers that were lifted up on the Miuras parked curbside. Initially a green one, and then a couple of others in their Popsicle colors, were victims of overheating. This is ...    Read more

On the first driving day of the Grande Giro celebrating Lamborghini’s 50th anniversary, I was grateful for the lunch they'd laid for us in the mountain village of Bobbio, because on the wiggly way down to the Mediterranean coast in our 2013 Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera we ended up behind an old, oil-burning ...    Read more

The Piazza Castello is burgeoning with Lamborghinis. Indeed, their raw screams pierce central Milan as 300 cars gather for the marque’s 50th anniversary, which is being celebrated with a Grande Giro. The 350GT was created in 1963, and at least a couple of them have joined this 1200-kilometer run, which ...    Read more

MORRIS, IL—After today’s early start, the Four Seasons Audi A7 gobbled up 800 miles from North Platte, Nebraska, to Morris, Illinois, with a two-hour stopover in my hometown of Omaha, where I visited my sister Kate and saw a couple of family history sites. The A7 continues to be ever so ...    Read more

NORTH PLATTE, NE—When you travel in a car whose audio system makes Judas Priest sound as fine as the Detroit Symphony Orchestra on an all-Haydn night, the plateau of central Wyoming, usually a formidable obstacle because of its dreariness, is disposed of with ease. You feel the bass in your ...    Read more

DRAPER, UTAH—The heifer was protecting her open range no matter what. She occupied the middle of the road, U.S. 50 near Nevada’s border with Utah, impeding my eastward journey in the 2012 Audi A7, and she wasn’t moving until her calf got up from the ditch. This is the sort ...    Read more

FALLON, NEVADA—I don’t know why I do things like this. Today, Monday, I picked up the Four Seasons Audi A7, which was stranded in San Francisco after use by other Automobile Magazine contributors, and drove it 275 miles. The plan is to deliver the A7 to the magazine’s office in ...    Read more

What really gets me about the Pagani Huayra are the leaf-like side mirrors, glancing away from the bodywork like errant shots on goal. These flourishes are within the European artistic tradition, bringing to mind Picasso’s crazy faces or Modigliani’s stretched women. When everybody else is trying to make mirrors disappear ...    Read more