Sunday, 16 September 2012

Filled Under:

lamborghini gallardo spyder review

Sunday, September 16, 2012


First of all, almost any time you can drive any car in this class, it is a superb experience. Sports cars that cost more than 200 grand are pretty much all worth their curb weight in thrilling. So if we are complaining about one thing or another, or noticing how one works better than the other here or there, it's not to say that you're not going to get your $214,995 worth. You will. But there are choices to be made in this rarified atmosphere, and there are distinct personalities to each option the buyer has.





Thus, if the Ferrari 458 Spider is the ultimate open-top sports car, the LP 550-2 is, like Lamborghinis from time immemorial, a beautifully sculpted mounting point for a powerful engine. That is not to dismiss it; it's just that the Ferrari (and we assume the coming convertible version of the McLaren; we've only driven the McLaren coupe) is better at steering around corners, with more feedback, a better weight to the steering wheel and a slightly quicker turn-in. The Lamborghini is still good at all that stuff, just not quite as good as its competitors.
The LP 550-2 Spyder is like the muscle car of Italian supercars. Standing still and looking superb or launching in a straight line is what it does best. Hammer the throttle from a standstill or from just about any point on the speedometer and you unleash a torrent of power and torque. Lamborghini lists curb weight at 3,351 pounds "dry," which means no gasoline, oil, windshield-washer fluid or Starbucks coffee in the cupholders. Supercarmakers tend to do that, especially the Italians. Your weight may vary but figure a real weight to be about 3,500 pounds. Combined with 543 hp, that's good for a 0-to-62-mph time of 4.2 seconds. We were expressly prohibited from running our own numbers on the car, so we'll have to guess that that sounds about right. It is mighty quick. Top speed is 198 mph. We had nowhere in the Los Angeles basin where we could verify that figure.
We did take it on a twisty mountain road and noticed a few character traits. Whether the suspension is set in sport or corsa, the front end has a tendency to bob a little like a 993 Porsche, the bigger bumps getting through to the driver, who may not want all of them. The car we drove was the exact same blue car that was unveiled in Los Angeles at the time of the last L.A. auto show, so maybe it was an early production car or a prototype, but it creaked and squeaked like crazy. It was not just the seat back squeaking against the rear bulkhead, which is bad enough, but the front and rear suspension (or some part of the aluminum spaceframe) was creaking like an old haunted house. We can only hope that this kind of thing gets sorted out as production numbers increase. The exhaust note, which could be fun for a while, was a little loud. We only mention that because it made it harder to drive speedily without being noticed by neighbors or LEOs. Switch to corsa or sport and the exhaust note gets louder. And while the power top raises and lowers with precision, when up it limits rear three-quarter visibility. We could learn to live with all of that.

0 comments:

Post a Comment