Superleggera

BBC America is rerunning the Top Gear Botswana challenge. Clarkson is in a stripped out Lancia Beta, praising the benefits of superleggera.

Superleggera. It means super light and denotes mid-century European exotics with metal tube frames. The cool thing about it is the added performance the improved power-to-weight ratio did for the cars, e.g. Aston DB4s, DB5s, Lambo 350GTs. The cooler thing is the sound of it-- super-le-JEH-ra. The coolest thing, in my opinion, is the discrete chrome badge adorning the hoods of these lucky automobiles.


To catch sight of one, there is a burgundy Aston Martin on permanent display at the Imperial Palace car museum in Vegas. This August, at the Concorso Italiano in Monterey, there will likely be an old blue Lambo superleggera, my personal favorite.


CKY