Lamborghini Huracan LP 610-4 Spyder 2016 Review

Lamborghini Huracan LP 610-4 Spyder
Quick Spin

Chopping the roof off a Lamborghini might sound like a good way to muck up a potent formula, but the new Huracan LP 610-4 Spyder reads so well at the specification sheet it's hard to believe it could be anything but a great drive. We've got just one day to find out….

My last experience of a Lamborghini was completing three laps of Calder Park in a Countach in 1996. It allegedly belonged to Tommy Suharto, the son of the then president of Indonesia. For all its brutish beauty it was an unruly thing to drive and I remember miss-shifting into third and revving to about 10,000rpm going past pitlane.

Yeeeoooowwww! It sounded something like that too.

So it's taken 20 years to get my bum back in a Lambo, not that I have mounted the most vociferous campaign to reacquaint myself with the Raging Bull.

But wow, how things sure have changed at Sant'Agata.

Driving down busy Punt Rd after picking up the Huracan LP 610-4 Spyder for our one-day 'Quick Spin' was as comfortable and soothing as lapping Calder in the Countach was frenetic, harsh and brutish.

With the Anima (Adaptive Network Intelligent Management) button (it also means 'soul' in Italian – geddit) at the bottom of the chunky steering wheel set to soft-core Strada mode the ride was livable, engine response diplomatic and the seven-speed dual-clutch's shifts in auto mode ludicrously smooth.

Clearly, things have changed a lot in the last 20 years… or to be more specific in the last 18 years since Lamborghini was purchased by Volkswagen Group and placed under the wing of luxury car division Audi.

The 90 degree V10 even comes with fuel-saving idle-stop and cylinder deactivation systems. The claimed combined fuel consumption is 12.3L/100km. We averaged 15.4L/100km out in the real world. Not bad for a supercar. You'd struggle to get anywhere that in any hard-driven local V8 performance sedan, even as the Spyder disappears up the road… rapidly.

We are getting our hands on the Spyder because this is Lamborghini's latest model. We'll explain its title for those not quite across Lambo's model designations and their mysteries; the Huracan is the 'entry-level' two-seater in the line-up. 'LP' denotes the midship longitudinal placement of its naturally-aspirated 5.2-litre V10 engine within the hybrid aluminium and carbon-fibre structure. '610' is its output in horsepower (its 449 in kilowatts, there's 560 Newton-metres as well). '4' denotes the electronically-controlled all-wheel drive. Spyder means drop-top, in this case a powered cloth roof that can open or close in 17sec at up to 50km/h.

The price? A cool $471,000 (plus ORCs). That's a lot, but still significantly less than a Ferrari 488 Spider or McLaren 650S Convertible.

If you are an exhibitionist, then the value of the Huracan is beyond measure. If you are an introvert, you are going to want to be somewhere else. People stop and stare, take photos, tap on the window to talk, offer the thumbs up, down and extend the middle digit. Our test car came in lurid 'Verde Mantis' green, which only made it even more noticeable.

And if it wasn't the looks it was the noise that made people swivel. We know the world is going turbocharged and even Lambo will eventually have to surrender to the inevitable and abandon natural aspiration, but damn this thing sounds good. Snap open the red cap, hit the starter button and it barks, howls or shrieks, depending where the tacho needle sits on the digitally generated dial. Change Anima from placatory Strada to fierce Sport or manic Corsa and it just gets better, adding pops, bangs and crackles on the over-run.

Roof down it sounds even better, of course, and as a halfway house if you're not feeling like a hair tousling, you can electronically operate the rear window, which functions as a windshield when closed and amplifies the sound of the engine when open.

The only time this thing doesn't sound good is when cruising at around 100km/h in top gear at 2500rpm. Then an annoying resonance invades the cabin.

Mind you, if the road surface is anything other than absolutely smooth asphalt the Huracan's 20-inch Pirelli P Zeros (305/30Z at the back and 245/30 up-front) roars like a stadium full of Azzuri fans celebrating a World Cup win – even if it comes from a ridiculous penalty in injury time in a round of 16 match at the 2006 world cup versus Australia. No we don't forget.

Ahem. Back to the subject at hand. Noise. Or at least full noise. Lamborghini claims the Spyder can accelerate from 0-100km/h in 3.4sec and on to 200km/h in 10.2sec, which is just a few tenths behind the 120kg lighter coupe. The top speed is claimed to be 324km/h. For once, a 340km/h speedometer is not superfluous.

With no desire to end up behind bars there wasn't too much flat-out driving and definitely no attempts to hit VMax. But we did manage to give the throttle something of a workout in brief spurts, and it was the directness of the response rather than its sheer thrust that really impressed.

You are – repeat are – going to want to bang through the gears via the flappy paddles as often as you can just for the sheer pleasure of their guillotine shifts. And they are huge, like bat wings, meaning you will never struggle to snag that next gear up or down. RenaultSport, for one, take note of how it's done.

So accelerate hard. The engine is doing berserk audio behind your head. The gears are snapping like twigs in an ice storm. It's all so connected. You really do feel the 40 valves hammering, gears meshing and Pirellis exploring the road.

That's not all you feel. The low speed comfort of Punt Road is long forgotten on a bumpy, winding country highway. While Sport is liveable, there's little travel and the car's so firm on its magnetorheological suspension in Corsa mode it's as if the front and rear double wishbones have seized. The underside of the nose grinds on the road any time you hit a granulation. After the 50th time you stop worrying. At least there is a nose-raising function, but it deactivates at 70km/h.

But the electric-assist steering is so very directly connected, the always adjusting all-wheel drive so secure and the six-pot front / four pot rear callipers clamp with such powerful assurance and progression on ceramic discs. When it all gels together and you speed through a combination of corners braking at the correct moment, carrying the right gear and revs and nailing the apexes it's yell-out-loud cool.

Apparently it's not as torsionally stiff as the coupe. I've even read that it understeers at the limit. But as far as I am concerned, when it comes to the driving, the Spyder is an awesome device.

But just look at this thing and you know there are compromises. There's little room for luggage, maybe a couple of soft bags under the bonnet, your phone and wallet in the door pockets or the long, narrow glovebox. Worse, the one-piece seats look sexy but proved hideously uncomfortable.

The centre stack was also festooned with buttons, some of them obviously from the Audi parts bin and other bits surprisingly low-rent considering the money being handed over.

Then there's just getting in and out… being low down is great for the driving not for creaky bones. With the roof on you are going to struggle for headroom if you are over 180cm, you may not also be able to get that troublesome seat back far enough. Roof in-place there is also very limited rear visibility – but that's what the front and rear parking sensors and reversing camera are for.

Which brings me to the final gripe. Options. The aforementioned parking aids will cost you $5700, our car's lurid paint $6500 and the rims it rode on $2030. There was also a $6000 sports exhaust and $3500 variable ratio steering. Oh come on. Really?

On the upside, all-wheel drive Huracans destined for Australia are the only ones globally to get the MRC suspension, sat-nav, lift function and heated seats standard. So it's a bargain in relative terms. Relative to a Lear Jet, I guess.

Me, I'm about $500,000 shy of affording a Lamborghini Huracan LP 610-4 Spyder, so it's a moot point. But one day was enough to convince me it's an awesome piece of automotive exotica.

Wonder what I'll find another 20 years from now?

2016 Lamborghini Huracan LP 610-4 Spyder pricing and specifications:
Price: $471,000 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 5.2-litre ten-cylinder petrol
Output: 449kW/560Nm
Transmission: Seven-speed dual clutch
Fuel: 12.3L/100km (ADR combined)
CO2: 285g/km (ADR combined)
Safety Rating: N/A

Also consider:
>> Ferrari 488 Spider (from $526,888)
>> McLaren 650S Convertible (from $511,000)
>> Porsche 911 Turbo S Cabriolet (from $466,500)