By Bryan Salamonei ///// Photos by Jeff Ahearn, Sid Bengeloun, Chris Cinelli, Innocenzo Ciorra, & Feris Fetyani
TEAMSALAMONE Created in 2008 for charitable purposes, including running rallies and long-distance driving events, TeamSalamone consists of myself, Bryan L. Salamone, Esq., and Divina DelaCruz. Our team has a lust for life that is unmatched by most others. Team-Salamone is the only rally team to have successfully completed all three major USA car rallies: Bullrun, Gumball 3000, and goldRush. The team boasts more rally experience and miles driving a Lamborghini Aventador than any other rally team! And I’ve logged more time behind the wheel of a Lamborghini Aventador than any person in the world.
Our team enjoys fame and notoriety as a result of our showmanship and outlandish behaviors. In 2012, we crossed the United States in the Gumball 3000 Rally, driving the first “Chrome-Tron” Lamborghini Aventador, which highlighted the industry of automotive “wrap” design. Ever since this debut rally, the Chrome-Tron Lamborghini Aventador design has been copied by everyone from Middle Eastern Royalty to Hollywood movie stars and rappers. It has become one of the most popular and well-known wrap designs.
TeamSalamone has owned two previous Lamborghini Aventadors (a 2012 coupe and a 2014 roadster) which have received widespread acclaim, including coverage by the following national and international media. (Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, Fox News, and more!)
ORDERING THE LATEST AVENTADOR FROM THE FACTORY
In June 2014, TeamSalamone ordered a new Lamborghini that had yet to be produced or seen by the public, the Aventador SV. Being the fastest and most powerful production car ever made by Lamborghini, it was a perfect fit for our team. The Team-Salamone 2015 “special build” Lamborghini was a unique car especially built for us.
I requested a black exterior and interior so that the new design could eclipse the world famous Chrome-Tron design of my 2012 Aventador coupe and 2014 roadster. Specifically, the black I favor is nero aldebaran with the trim as nero cosmus and the contrasting interior color of grigio cronos. The most interesting options for the Super Veloce in my opinion were the carbon footrests, the carbon fiber air intakes, the color contrast seatbelts, and the center lock rims. The coup de grace was of course the “carbon skin package,” previously referred to as “the unknown material that was used in the Veneno.” Some customers who order the Super Veloces are concerned about whether to go with a large or small “SV logo,” which is a decal from the factory. The car, in my opinion, demands the large SV logo!
A word of caution, however, for anyone who has center lock wheels: do not to use any chemicals when cleaning the center lock pieces! Almost all wheel cleaners will destroy the finish immediately. They are anodized aluminum and they are not coated the same way your standard wheel or center caps are coated. I learned this the hard way! Leonardo Laviola of Lamborghini really made this project special by adding personalized stitching between the seats using my name in the Super Veloce font! This had never been done for another customer!
The factory experience of purchasing the SV was wonderful and the personal attention was beyond amazing. It is the relationship with the dealer that makes the ordering process smooth. This Super Veloce is the third Aventador that I have purchased from Manhattan Motorcars (and we have a fourth on order!), which I regard as the most “balling” dealership in the world.
Whether you watch movies such as Wall Street or simply grew up in New York, most people know that royalty, rock stars, movie stars, and business moguls- from the canyons of Wall Street to Fifth Avenue- all come to Manhattan Motorcars to order the most exclusive cars in the world. The first time I entered, I was greeted kindly and enjoyed a couple hours’ worth of information and friendly banter. They also paid close attention to detail, returning my calls within ten minutes of me leaving a message, and never considering my concerns too small or unimportant.
As a person who agonizes over every detail, I am certainly a high maintenance customer. The average Aventador requires me to change my order three to five times and contact my dealer 30-40 times. Recently when I needed to ask a favor from Manhattan Motorcars, they obliged. Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson asked me if Manhattan Motorcars would allow him to shoot a video in their show room, and Manhattan Motorcars generously gave us full access to their building! So, my car and I were both in a 50 Cent video with the lead actor of the Power television series on Starz Network, Rotimi!
An additional personal touch was the fact that my friend, Gaetano Nicotra from the factory, actually communicated with me, telling me how beautiful my car was. I was so touched that I wrote a letter to his boss, Enrico Maffeo, asking if I could possibly have a picture of my friend Gaetano with my new Aventador SV before it left the factory. I then received a picture of Gaetano wishing the car well before it left the factory grounds. His exact words were, “Ciao Nero Demon ti aspettano tante belle aventure negli states.” Translated this means, “Goodbye Black Demon. We expect many beautiful adventures in the States.”
THE DESIGN SEARCH
Now that the new TeamSalamone Lamborghini had been configured and ordered, the search for the wrap design had to begin. The design search started a year before the car would be delivered by contacting dozens design shops, artists, and wrap installation companies. All of the more famous wrap designers and shops throughout the States, and even a few from Europe and Asia, submitted more than 100 sample designs total. Sadly, none of these were sufficient or eye catching enough. None of them had the showmanship, the flash, and the style of the past exotic car wraps that have allowed TeamSalamone to help raise over $1 million in charitable donations for various charities and causes. We were now losing hope that we would find the design we needed.
THE DESIGN SEARCH ENDS AFTER LAMBORGHINI GIRO
Upon returning home from the Lamborghini GIRO on August 1st, 2015- anticipating the delivery of the Aventador SV- I glimpsed the tear-streaked face of Divina. She was weeping with joy, for she had found a design that was so fresh, so new, that she could not contain herself. The design was submitted by NS2 Media, which drew many questions- namely, who were they? On Divina’s initial phone call to the company, a 14-year old boy named Nick from Pennsylvania answered and introduced himself. Nick and his friend, Anthony, had started the design in a video game where the player is able to do custom paint designs for the car they have in the game. They then decided to input that design into a laptop and attempt to compete with multi-million dollar design shops. In communicating with Nick and Anthony, TeamSalamone found a fresh design from two teenagers who expressed enthusiasm that adults seem to have lost. There were nights when Divina and I would Facetime with the teenagers until 4 a.m. as they perfected the design, which totaled almost a hundred hours in design before it was finished.
This became more of a friendship than just a working relationship. The teens would text us constantly throughout the day regarding adjustments and refinements to the design. At one point, Nick asked me to write his parents a letter because it seemed that nobody believed he had accomplished a design of such magnitude. You see, nobody knew who won this contest. It has all been kept secret.
TeamSalamone has been contacting wrap suppliers and wrap designers and, one by one, telling them they lost the contest to a famous design dream team. Anticipation has built. U.S. wrap designers were certain that we had obtained the design from Europe. European designers assumed that we had obtained it from Japan. Everybody assumed that the person who was doing this design was certain to be a very well-known wrap designer, such as the ones that have been gracing the pages of magazines. But we kept the secret until the private and public debuts!
PRIVATE DEBUT EVENT AT DETAILING DYNAMICS
The Internet was buzzing about the upcoming private reveal on Friday, August 21st for the design of the TeamSalamone Aventador SV. A week before the reveal, we met with the wrap designers for the first time in person. The meeting went even better than anticipated, with young Nick requesting a hug from Divina as proof that it was not a dream! There was an instant chemistry as Nick and Anthony brought something to TeamSalamone that had been missing–the youthful exuberance of teenagers! In working hard to make these teenagers’ dream come to reality, we obtained the services of Detailing Dynamics, who originally designed the Gumball 3000 wrap that shocked the world in 2012. Furthermore, we obtained sponsorship from XPEL Paint Protection Film and Metro Restyling, the United States’ largest source for vinyl wrap.
The dream team designers, Nick and Anthony, have now created a name for themselves. They are now known as NS2 Media. They appeared at Detailing Dynamics in Mineola to see their creation at the private debut before the public debut the following day. There was a team of photographers, reporters, and videographers to record the event. The car was flawless, and the weekend celebration commenced.
PUBLIC DEBUT OF THE TEAMSALAMONE AVENTADOR SV
We left Long Island at 5:00 a.m. the next morning and drove to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania for the Super Cars on State Street (SCOSS) Breast Cancer Charity event. This well-known event involves police and state government officials supervising the positioning of cars near the steps of the Capitol Building. Once everything was in position, Channel 21 News appeared for the uncovering of the Aventador SV before hundreds of people! The founder of the event, Edward Ross, presented the designers and TeamSalamone with handmade awards on a live television broadcast.
After spending Saturday night in Connecticut (the designers escorted by Nick’s mom), we took part in the Dream Ride Organization event on Sunday, which is one of the largest events in the Northeast United States providing charitable donations for the Special Olympics. There were at least twenty hypercars including a Pagani, La Ferrari, and several McLaren P-1s. Though the hyper-cars were amazing, it was the TeamSalamone Aventador SV that completely stole the focus of the show!
After a weekend of touring through three states, traveling over 750 miles, being on more than one television station, and being photographed by thousands, the young dream team expressed their thanks to TeamSalamone and parted ways.
After returning home, we noticed that there were countless messages from wrap installation companies across the United States asking for the contact information of our new design team, NS2 Media. Find NS2 Media at NSIIMedia@gmail.com or on Instagram as NS2 MEDIA. TeamSalamone can be reached at TeamSalamone@aol.com or on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Periscope as TeamSalamone.