According to the UK’s Autocar, Lamborghini has put production of its stunning Estoque four-door supercar on ice.

The Estoque, a four-door, four-seat, front/mid-engined concept, was first seen by the public at last year’s Paris motor show and has met with much acclaim and admiration from enthusiasts.

For the time being at least, the deteriorating economic climate has claimed another scalp.

“The timing and market conditions are just not right for an additional model line,” explained Maurizio Reggiani, Lamborhini’s head of research and development.

Lamborghini has pulled the pin on the Estoque at an early stage in the new supercar’s development cycle, avoiding the massive cost penalty that canning a mostly developed new model would entail.

The Italian supercar maker will instead focus on reducing weight and increasing the efficiency of future Gallardo and Murcielago models.

Maurizio Reggiani has confirmed that Lamborghini will continue to resist pressure “from a number of areas” to fit DSG gearboxes to future models, claiming they are “too smooth” and lack a “sense of occasion and drama”.

Conventional manual gearboxes could even be consigned to Lamborghini history. Instead, the few who can afford future generation Lamborghini’s can look forward to future generations of Lamborghini’s E-Gear transmission.

The E-Gear transmission, essentially a manual six-speed gearbox with electro-mechanical shift mechanism, will continue to be developed and according to Reggiani, the next-gen E-Gear will be “really surprising”.

GALLERY » lamborghini-estoque_01

[Source: Autocar]