Nick Hall Freelance motoring journalist in the UK
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When the space-age Lamborghini Murcielago Roadster glides into view, its ability to stop traffic is incomparable. Nick Hall test drives the latest supercar.
The new Murcielago Roadster is an aggressive, angular wedge of a car that simply commands attention. Even when stood still on the roadside, its signature scissor doors raised to the heavens, the Lamborghini came to close to causing a crash on a main road in Italy’s Bolognese region.
The Murcielago is a geometric work of art, a beautiful equation of clean, straight lines that embody the marriage of Italian flair and German efficiency. And it’s a consistent story on the inside, with an asymmetric and stylish, yet thoroughly uncluttered design dominated by the gigantic metallic gate for the six-speed gearbox.
A rear wing pops out of the bodywork at approximately 130kph to stick the rear to the road, but at low speeds the designer just wasn’t prepared to accept extra appendages that would ruin the smooth lines.
Apart from those steel, jack-knife doors, the rest of the car’s skin is constructed from carbon fibre to keep the weight down to a slimline 1660kg. Under the skin, though, Lamborghini relies on a tubular steel chassis with carbon-fibre reinforcement, including a cage around the engine that shows just how far the marque has gone to stiffen the chassis and sharpen the handling.
Cutting the roof off a car can have disastrous consequences when it comes to taking bends, but the Italian marque has worked hard to minimise the damage done to its flagship, which is famous for its agility. That’s largely due to the permanent four-wheel system that transfers power to the front wheels when the rear steps out of line. All of Lamborghini’s closest rivals rely on rear-wheel drive, that provides a purer driving experience that, inevitably, is harder to handle.
In a straight line the rear retains most control, allowing racing car acceleration and more feel in bends, but when the Lamborghini slides some of that power is distributed through a viscous coupling to the fronts that try and pill the car straight. When a car costs this much and goes this fast, a safety net is a big bonus and the end result is a car that will inflict whiplash.
The 6.2-litre powerplant developed in conjunction with Audi has an epic 571lb ft of torque at its disposal and can propel the Murcielago Roadster to 100kph in 3.6s and a top end speed of 320kph a few clicks down on the fixed-roof sibling due to the messier aerodynamics of the soft-top. With the hammer firmly down, this machine can take your breath away with its blistering acceleration, but the flexibility if perhaps even more impressive than its outright speed.
Now the Lamborghini is more than two metres wide, which caused some nervous glances towards oncoming traffic and rear visibility is non-existent, so it’s a nightmare to reverse. But the controls are light, easy to use and the clutch pedal doesn’t feel like a weightlifter’s warm-up.
There’s an ‘E-gear’, a semi-automatic paddle-shift system that takes the clutch out of things completely. Sadly, most customers opt for this, suggesting that a Lamborghini owner is generally more interested in looking good than the art of driving. That’s a real shame, as this car has the balance of a Bolshoi dancer.
Kept on a gentle throttle, the Murcielago is a pussycat that can cruise the high streets soaking up the admiring gazes as the engine lazily burbles away. You can even lift the front end on bad roads to prevent costly scrapes to that front splitter. Press the loud pedal, though, and the rear wheels spin momentarily before the car blasts down the road.
The engine note hardens to a mechanised roar, the speedo races round to illegal speeds and the scenery races past the window at a bullet-train rate. It’s an emotional experience driving a Lamborghini in full flight one that is well worth the price of admission and the replacement rear tyres every 7000km.
Braking is equally impressive and the car is fitted with ABS, anti-dive and anti-squat technology to ensure the weight is distributed evenly under heavy use. The Murcielago is loaded with technology, unlike other supercars that shy away from electronic input, so its potentially the easiest car in its class to drive fast.
The only real downside is the soft-top roof, which by Lamborghini’s own admission is nothing more than an emergency cover. It comes with its own instruction booklet, takes old hands 10 minutes to assemble and, once up, the car cannot be driven at more than 160kph as its liable to blow away like tumbleweed. If you have the money to buy a Lamborghini, though, you have the money to buy another car to use in adverse weather.
This is a car that should not be tainted by rain in any case: it’s an adrenaline-loaded fiend that could possibly be your very best fair-weather friend.