Wikipedia:Peer review/Lamborghini/archive1

Lamborghini

This peer review discussion has been closed.
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)

Comments from Ricardiana

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

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)

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)

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)

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)

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

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

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