So it seems. Lamborghini's top brass swore blind at the launch of the Gallardo that there was no stripped-out Murcielago LP640 waiting in the wings. 'The LP640 is wild enough,' Stephan Winkelmann, Lamborghini's president told us. But he's obviously changed his mind – as our exclusive pictures of this lightweight Lambo special show.

Despite the impenetrable ring of secrecy surrounding the development of this new iteration – no one at Lamborghini will officially acknowledge its existence – our sources claim the LP640 will not adopt the Superleggera name, but rather the more hallowed Superveloce badge.

First seen on the last of the Miura P400 (the one without the eyelashes around its headlamps) and later on the Diablo, Superveloce is Italian for high speed… Expect it to bow in at the Frankfurt Motor Show this coming September, wearing a £230,000 price tag.

Although the LP640 is due for a final swan-song power hike before its Walter de’Silva-penned replacement arrives at the turn of the decade, it's thought that the LP640 SV will go on an extreme diet and rely on a lower kerb weight and shorter gear ratios to give it even more ferocious in-gear go from its mid-mounted 6.5-litre V12.

Like the Gallardo Superleggera, the LP640 SV's kerb weight will drop by an anticipated 100kg to 1565kg, boosting its power-to-weight ratio to 409bhp per tonne. Think of it as a slightly bigger Caterham R400 and you'll get the idea.

Fitting carbon ceramic brakes, stripping the cabin of everything but the essentials and even using titanium wheel nuts (like on the Gallardo Superleggera) should easily take care of the necessary weight loss, but the SV will retain its all-wheel-drive layout.

As well as that outrageous wing – supplied by Boeing, we hear – the SV is expected to get a revised set of gear ratios to keep the longitudinally-mounted engine spinning close to its wailing 8000rpm redline. Although this should drop the 0-60mph spring time from 3.4sec to three seconds dead and deliver eyeball-flattening mid-range acceleration , expect the shorter ratios to peg back top speed from 210mph to an even 200mph. Roll on September.

And don't rule out the possibility of a Gallardo SV arriving late next year to take on Ferrari's F430 Stradale. The hardcore Gallardo will be a full blown hardcore racer, shedding more weight and gaining more power, and giving Lamborghini an effective three-tiered Gallardo model line-up.

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I sincerely hope the wing is optional.

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i still think they should shed the weight down to around 1300kg
i hope the top speed is higher than 200mph too

200mph is more than fast enough, and top speed hardly matters on a track unless it's all straight.

I really want to see the Gallardo SV as well.

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*Looking Forward to my first Lamborghini, whenever I shall have her!*

This is where it would make the biggest gains in lap times. Everything on the car from the drive train, brakes, tires, suspension wouldn't have to work as hard and the fuel would be more economical allowing it to go further without refueling.

For it to loose over 300kgs from stock, that would take some immense changes. I suspect they would have to drop something like the heavy 4wd system in favor of a lighter rwd system. This is on top of dropping all the luxury items like sat nav, air con, passenger seat, replacing panels with cf. It would pretty much become a race car and probably illegal for street lols.

I've been theorizing that the murci replacement is going to be a much lighter vehicle design.

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*Looking Forward to my first Lamborghini, whenever I shall have her!*

News from today's worldcarfans:

Lamborghini to Bow Out Murcielago with Lightweight SV
The Murcielago having last year had its engine upgraded to a 6.5-litre unit and its styling subtly revised for the 2007 model year LP640, the present range-topping Lamborghini is to take its final bow with the introduction of a special edition ultra-lightweight version - the Murcielago SV.

The SV will have weight-saving at its heart, with reductions expected to shave off between 220 and 300 pounds from the Murcielago's 3663-pound body. And in conjunction with a final power upgrade expected to exceed that of the Reventon's 6.5-litre V12-powered 641 horses, straying nearer to 680 hp and 516 lb-ft of torque, straightline performance is set to be phenomenal.
Development will focus around three key areas: interior, exterior and mechanicals. Carbon-fiber will take over the cabin, with inner door skins, seat shells, the transmission tunnel and leather-lined door panels all becoming carbon fiber, as well as door handles being replaced with pull straps and the audio system being scrapped - but likely becoming a weighty optional extra.

With the exception of aluminium roof and door panels, the Murcielago boasts a carbon-fiber dominated body. And so the ditching of the front differential and driveshafts, to produce a rear-wheel-drive setup, will shed 90 pounds. All-new forged and machined alloy rims will lose some 13 pounds at each corner. The electronically-operated system used to raise and lower the rear spoiler will also go, to be replaced by two large carbon fiber wings.
To cope with power being routed solely to the rear wheels, traction control software will be heavily modified, while faster shifting will be provided by the standard fitting of Lamborghini's clutchless e-gear transmission system. Insiders suggest shift times could drop from 0.4 to 0.2 seconds.

Set to be replaced within three years, the SV is likely to be the last re-incarnation of the Murcielago before the arrival of its successor. There are as yet no plans for an ultra-lightweight Gallardo SV

Color me stupid, but what other areas could there be? Structure / chassis?

Who'd going to be the first on this board to get one? Jorge? Roy? BTW, where did Jorge go? I think I scared him off. . .

It will have more power then the Reventon? Id be kinda pissed if I paid a million dollars more for my car then the other guy and he can still beat me. But then again Reventon is being sold completely on exclusivity.

I would think that a Reventon (Why is it pronounced with a "b" instead of a "v"?) is a show car. People who buy that kind of car do it to treasure something that is rare.
But I don't see why Lamborghini's rarest car has to be named after a Spanish bull. Why not after an Italian?