What's the news?
Last year at the Geneva Motor Show, Lamborghini unveiled the more-focused version of its superb Huracan, which it called the Performante. This year, at the same event, the Italian company has taken the opportunity to give us the open-top variant. Therefore, what you're looking at here is the gorgeous Lamborghini Huracan Performante Spyder.
Powered by the same uprated example of the 5.2-litre normally aspirated V10 petrol engine as seen in the Performante coupe, that means the Spyder has 640hp available at 8,000rpm and 600Nm to back it up, the torque peaking at 6,500rpm but with 70 per cent of it (420Nm) on tap from just 1,000rpm. Performance, as you would expect given these numbers and the car's name, is startling: 0-100km/h in 3.1 seconds, 0-200km/h in 9.3 seconds and a top speed of 325km/h. Thankfully, you might like to know that the brakes are equal to the task of reigning this hard-charging bull in - 100-0km/h takes just 31.5 metres.
At 1,502kg, the Performante Spyder is therefore a considerable 125kg portlier than its hard-topped brother, but the weight is split 43:57 front-to-rear and the car has a healthy 426hp/tonne power-to-weight ratio.
The fabric folding roof of the Huracan Spyder, which can be raised or lowered in 17 seconds, even on the move at speeds of up to 50km/h, is retained, while it also wears much of the Performante coupe's styling features - like 20-inch wheels (of a different design here, though) and a colossal rear wing. And it looks bloody brilliant, we don't mind telling you.
Anything else?
"The Huracan Performante Spyder takes the zenith of Huracan developments, combined with the enhanced emotion of driving a convertible," said Stefano Domenicali, chairman and CEO of Automobili Lamborghini. "The Huracan Performante already provides the most heightened feedback and emotion from road and track, and the Huracan Performante Spyder puts the driver even closer to asphalt and air, as well as the unique resonance of a naturally-aspirated Lamborghini engine."