Motor Authority broke the news that a hot exotic car (the world famous Lamborghini Gallardo) got even hotter when it caught fire at the Portland auto show.
The website revealed, "Fire marshals at the show, quite reasonably, won't let any car enter the building with more than a quarter-tank of fuel. The Gallardo attempted to enter with an undisclosed greater amount, however, and was refused. Makes good sense so far."
According to the automotive website, "That's when the story gets stupid."
Instead of figuring a way to extract the fuel from the tank, taking it for a quick 50-mile spin, or just swapping it for another Gallardo, the display staff decided it'd be a good idea to just sit in the car and rev it to redline in neutral. Not so good for the car, but, in a pinch, excusable--perhaps.
The person behind the wheel soon grew tired of the limiter-popping, however, and decided to automate the process with a piece of wood lodged between the seat and the gas pedal.
It was then that the unthinkable happened -- because of the auto show staff's creative engineering feat, Motor Authority says, "Yes, a piece of wood..." [with an implied D'OH!]
"After sitting idle at full song for several minutes, the completely predictable, inevitable, and foreseeable occurred: it overheated and caught fire."
That is not the right way to treat any car -- let alone a hot one like the Lamborghini Gallardo (an exotic car capable of going 202+ miles per hour).
And for the record, the gas mileage on a Lambo Gallardo is roughly 20 MPG on the highway and 13 MPG when tooling around town conservatively... so exactly how long those jokers thought they could abuse the car that way before using up a tank of gasoline is all the more mind boggling.
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