Looking into the possibility of selling my SL55 (610hp Renntech/Brabus) and moving up to a gallardo or R8. This will be a daily driver, although my "daily drive" is rather limited as I put 5k miles on per year.

I prefer the looks of the gallardo, but how do they hold up as a dd? I think the R8 gets the nod here by most reviews that I've read. I think the price favors the gallardo at this time though. Also, what about e gear vs 6 speed for dd? Anything to avoid in the 04, 05 years in general?

 

I had an R8 and a Gallardo at the same time. The R8 is super smooth and makes an excellent "Daily". The egress and ingress is normal, as is the ride height and visibility. The negatives for being a daily are the usual "attracts too much attention" and needing to watch where you park the car.

The Gallardo would make a less friendly "Daily". In E-gear, the car hates to be driven around stop and go city driving and parallel parking the car is not the easiest. Visibility is not great in heavy traffic and ingress/egress is more difficult than the R8. The G makes up for all of it on the open road, though. The car looks great, sounds great and is fun to drive.

If your daily driver involves a lot of city driving, I would go with the R8. If it's simply freeway or open road, I would go with the Gallardo.

(I also had a SL55 for a short while. It did't have the 650 hp that yours has, but the steering felt very "waffley" to me).

 

Very helpful, thanks. I think I'll go for the manual in either car. I pretty much assumed what you said about the more friendly R8 as a dd.

You are right on about the SL55. Scary handling with 600+ hp. "Squirrely" is a good description, particularly compared to my previous car (NSX).