Hi Folks-

New to the Lambo forum. The site looks terrific; and also the members seem both knowledgable and nice. As preamble, I'm not yet a Gallardo owner, but, perhaps, hope to be in the reasonably near future. This brings me to my clutch-related question. After reading LOTS of reviews on the car, I get the distinct impression that the Gallardo is a robust, and reasonably user-friendly vehicle, particuarly for an exotic. However, though its not written about as much, the clutch appears to be the weakest link in this car's equation. I've spoken with several dealer service people and I'm led to believe that, even for those owners who are not abusing their cars it is not uncommon to burn through clutches every 5K to 10K miles. <gulp> Now, though I've not yet settled on one Gallardo in particular, I'm basically only interested in a standard 6-speed car. Also, I would intend to use the car mostly for cross-country drives from the East coast to the West coast which I tend to do about three to four times per year. There will also be about 25% city driving, but no drag racing and no autocrossing. So I hope this sets the stage for the core of my question. I'd be appreciative to hear enlightened opinions from you kind people regarding the sort of longevity I can realistically expect to achieve between clutch replacements. Since, as you know, this process is quite expensive (~$7K per) I'd really like to go into this thing with my eyes open, so to speak. Anyway, that's my question. Thanks in advance for any thoughts you may care to offer...

angeno