There was just a hint of protest from the PZero Corsa rubber as I closed the gap between my car and the wailing banshee in front of me. But after quickly getting my hair out of my face, I dug in deeper—I was determined to make every second of our time out in the twisties count. After turning some heads on Rodeo Drive—exhaust system cranked to 11, naturally—we had run headlong into bumper-to-bumper traffic on Pacific Coast Highway, relegated to 5mph while behind the wheel of one of the most capable sports cars in the world. By the time we finally reached the Malibu Hills, I was more than ready to open up the taps. And open them, I did.
The Rosso Mars Huracan Performante Spyder I was chasing was helmed by a representative from O'Gara Lamborghini of Beverly Hills, as I was on what the dealership refers to as a "client experience." But rest assured, this ain't your typical test drive.
"Once you get into a canyon the real fun begins," explained Letizia Silvestri of O'Gara Lamborghini before my seat time. "The lead driver is there to set the pace and often, it's hard to keep to up with them." While I had no doubt we'd keep a spirited pace when conditions were right for it, I couldn't help but wonder if part of that challenge might be the $308,859 base price of the Performante Spyder looming large in potential customers' minds—and the bill they might be on the hook for if they ran out of talent out on the drive. After a stint at The Thermal Club with the Huracan Performante coupe earlier this year, I had an inkling of what to expect from its open-top brethren, so I was ready for as much fun as they were willing to give me.
Upon its debut, the Huracan Performante coupe had the distinction of being the best-performing Lamborghini production car in the company's storied history. While the upcoming Lamborghini Aventador SVJ recently beat the Performante's Nurburgring lap time by more than seven seconds, taking the production car title from Porsche's 911 GT2 RS and providing a strong indication that it will be the new top dog out of Sant'Agata, the Huracan Performante coupe isn't exactly a slouch when it comes to dynamic capability.
That certainly bodes well for the Huracan Performante Spyder. Still, there's a lengthy history of sports cars that have been defanged to a tangible degree when outfitted for open top duty. Did the Performante Spyder suffer a similar fate? I was determined to find out.
EMOTIVE ENGINEERING
Although the Huracan is a potent machine in any iteration, the Performante is the most formidable of them all. Nestled just behind the seats is a naturally aspirated, 5.2-liter V10 that makes 631 horsepower and 443 pound-feet of torque in Performante guise, and with the power sent to all four corners, the Spyder will sprint to 62 mph from a standstill in a scant 3.1 seconds. That's two-tenths behind its coupe counterpart, but Spyder matches the fixed-roof model for top speed at 202 mph.
While the Performante packed on about 250 pounds during its transformation into a roadster—a result of additional structural reinforcement, which largely accounts for the small discrepancy in straight-line acceleration between the coupe and the Spyder—it's still far from portly. Lamborghini claims a dry weight of 3322 pounds, which is down 77 pounds when compared to the LP 610-4 Spyder, Lamborghini's "garden variety" four-wheel drive Huracan droptop.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
At 6'3" I fit in the Huracan Performante Spyder—but only just. With the top down headroom is obviously unlimited, but I needed to put the seat forward in the cabin a bit more than I would have preferred in order to position the seatback in such a way that my outward visibility wasn't partially obstructed by the top of the windshield. In this position the roof clears the top of my noggin too, but the margin for error is close enough that I instinctually ducked down a bit when the cloth top came swooping in to connect with the windshield.
But opening the roof is operation that takes a mere 17 seconds in the Huracan Performante Spyder. It's a task well worth the time, weather provided, if for no other reason than to remove any obstructions between the active exhaust system and one's ears.
Heading out from O'Gara I started off in the Strada drive mode, the Huracan's most laid-back setting. While it's well suited for slow-speed cruising around town and stop-and-go traffic, I quickly moved up to Sport mode—not for stiffer dampening that the optional magnetorheological adaptive suspension provides, or to get more urgency from the seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox, but to coax the exhaust system into full song.
Yet when there isn't a road course handy, the Huracan Performante Spyder still has plenty to offer. On a nice day it begs for a long, scenic drive with the roof down. You'll find yourself pulling the left paddle, even when you don't need to, just to hear the sonorous wail of the V10 as it barks to life from the downshift at which point you can watch the faces of onlookers light up around you. While the Performante Spyder might lose half a step to the coupe dynamically, it more than makes up for it with sheer charisma.
