Wikipedia:Peer review/Lamborghini/archive1

Lamborghini

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I've done a lot of work on this article, improving the history of the company with multiple sources, discussing its heritage, current product offerings, and corporate structure. I believe this article could easily reach good article status, and hopefully eventually reach featured status. I would appreciate any help and advice you can give regarding useful information that's missing, copyediting, structure, style, and anything else you may want to comment on.

Thanks, AniRaptor2001 (talk) 08:47, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Ricardiana

Done Ricardiana (talk) 05:01, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

* What is S.p.A.? (you could explain in a footnote rather than cluttering up the lead)

~~In general, the lead seems too short - only a para. for a quite long article. It should be expanded ... 2 or three paragraphs would be good.~~

Origin

* First sentence has a lot of clauses beginning with "in." Can you re-word?

"Not wishing to continue in the farming life of his parents" - seems a little wordy. Could you say something like "not wishing to farm grapes"?

That same sentence is a little clause-heavy. Can you break it up a bit?

"Ferruccio's life turned tragic" - up to this point, you've been referring to him by his last name. Be consistent (and the last name is the way to go here, as you're not juggling different Lamborghinis).

"Ferruccio's life turned tragic" - cliched phrasing.

"Ferruccio would later cite his reluctance to race his cars on the basis that Tonino should not be exposed to the dangers of motorsport" -- non sequitur.

Of course you will need to eliminate any "citation needed"s for this to become GA or FA.

"Like many young men of his time" - really?

"He also sought to move into helicopter building" ... "a helicopter..."?

"the tiny Fiats he tinkered with" -- "had tinkered"

"weren't up to scratch" - sounds too casual

~~"secret the car away" - spelled secrete in the context, but I'm not sure that's the best word~~

1963-1964: First forays

* "dry-sump lubrication" - could you wikilink this? In general, it might be a good idea to comb over the entire article for car terms to wikilink for the benefit of less-informed readers.

"wanted a well-mannered powerplant" - powerplant is confusing to me here, as it usually refers to a building.

"with Bizzarrini not receiving" - this construction is not ungrammatical (see [1], but you will likely be told so if you take this to GA/FA. So, just so you know.

"the centerpiece around which the Lamborghini story was written" - sounds too flowery; see WP:Peacock. In general, the article needs to be made a little less breathless and more neutral in its tone.

"By 1963, Ferruccio had the people" - more switching back and forth between last name / first name. Also, "had" is a rather weak verb - could be "Lamborghini had acquired/assembled" or something along those lines.

1965-1966: Lamborghini arrives

* "such a vehicle would be too expensive and distracting from the company's focus" - violates parallelism. Could be "too expensive and would distract".

~~"the engineers decided to instead fill" - in general, I'm not against split infinitives. This one, though, is awkward.~~

~~"it was a high point in Ferruccio Lamborghini's life." - need a more specific word / phrase than "it"~~

1967-1968: Beginning of sales success

"Lamborghini was establishing itself as a reputable automaker on a worldwide level." Sounds POV without a citation; also, it makes an awkward break between what comes before and follows after.

1968-1969: Difficulties overcome

'stating his mission as: "I wish to build"' - smoother as "stating that his mission was 'to build'"
"problems with its fully unionized work force, among which the machinists and fabricators had begun to take one-hour token stoppages" - better as "among which was that"
"Ferruccio Lamborghini, who often rolled up his sleeves and joined in the work on the factory floor, was able to motivate his staff" - needs a citation.

1970-1974: Ferruccio bows out

"clean-sheet design" - can you wikilink this?
'with little consideration for fuel efficiency, (the 1986 Countach, powered by a 5.2-litre evolution of the V12 engine, had a 6 mpg city" - comma should come after parenthetical
"Ferruccio remarried" - this is a surprise - I hadn't heard about his personal life for a while, making the transition rather abrupt, and I haven't heard about his first wife much, making the introduction of a second one even more surprising

1978-1987: Bankruptcy, Mimran, and Chrysler

"the company entered bankruptcy in 1978, and the Italian courts took control of the company" - avoid repetition of "the company"
"after paying out $33 million[Notes 3]" - Note 3, not notes

1990-1991

Title of section should have a sub-title, as the others do.
"the Diablo was the fastest production car" - do you mean the fastest in speed, or the fastest to be produced?

1994-1997: Indonesian ownership

"In 1995, Lamborghini produced a hit, when the Diablo was updated to top-end SuperVeloce trim." - What is "SuperVeloce" trim? And, again, this is the kind of statement that just sounds too POV and needs more backing.

1999-2002: Audi steps in

"and was named fittingly, for the bull" - need comma before as well as after "fittingly"

Present

As last section ends with 2002, this section should be "2002 [or 2003] to present"
"exotic and endearing" - more of this POV language. I've only pointed out a few examples, but the article needs to be proofread just for POV statements and for those statements to be either cited, re-worded, or removed.

Identity

This section repeats much information already given earlier in the article. I'm not sure it's necessary.

Corporate affairs

ditto.

Sales history

Already marked as needing expansion. Will therefore need to be expanded before article can be GA or FA.
Not sure that the map of Lamborghini's birthplace is necessary at all, but seems especially odd placed here

Timeline of ownership

Another section lacking new information. Ricardiana (talk) 00:22, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Images

* Caption reading "Ferruccio, the father of Automobili Lamborghini" makes it sound like Automobili is his son.

Caption reading "...a region with a bustling agricultural economy and the cradle of Italy's automobile industry" violates parallelism. Could be "the cradle of Italy's a.i., the region also boasts a bustling...." or something like that.

Caption reading "It was the clutch problems he had with his Ferrari 250GTs that led Ferruccio to consider building his own cars" is wordy. In general, avoid starting a sentence with "it is." Here you could say "The clutch problems ... led...."

~~Caption reading "The Espada was Lamborghini's first truly popular model, selling over 1,200 examples during its ten years of production" - not sure that "example" is the best word.~~

More later.... Ricardiana (talk) 05:18, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

References

Lacking books, of which there are quite a few. This is a problem for one of the GA criteria, which requires that articles be broad in their coverage of sources. Ricardiana (talk) 00:22, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Bottom line = the article needs more references, particularly to books on the subject; POV statements need to be eliminated; repetition needs to be eliminated; more links need to be introduced, to help explain car terminology to non-enthusiasts; and the writing needs some work as well. Ricardiana (talk) 00:22, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is a great start, thanks very much! AniRaptor2001 (talk) 20:25, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the review, it's been very helpful. AniRaptor2001 (talk) 02:07, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're very welcome. Ricardiana (talk) 02:10, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]