Designed by the gifted Luc Donckerwolke, the Murcilago roadster looks radically modern from the outside and luxurious from behind the wheel. Monochrome leather with contrasting stitching takes the place of modish finishes such as carbon fiber and wood, and there aren't features such as a starter button, a folding navigation screen, or a neatly integrated car phone. Instead, the Lambo welcomes you with six clearly legible circular dials, a row of five secondary push buttons, two column stalks, a CD radio, and a panel that offers two extra transmission settings and an ESP-off mode. Welcome convenience features include folding door mirrors, power cooling air scoops, and the ability to raise the nose by 1.8 inches to avoid costly curb contact.
When cold, the 6.2-liter quad-cam V-12 settles into an agitated idle. Moments later, its 571 horsepower are ready for action. With my foot on the brake, I click into first gear on the E-gear sequential manual transmission, wait for the clonk-clonk confirmation from deep within the transmission housing, then push the throttle. The wedge-shaped roadster growls like a bunch of hungry tigers, the nose lifts as it spears forward, and the first gust of headwind pushes down the brim of my hat at 60 mph.
Although there are 7700 revs waiting for me, I begin by shifting up at 4000 rpm, instantly awestruck by the intense blend of noise, draft, and forward thrust. But curiosity and lust overcome sense and reason, so I press on. Up to 4500 rpm, the dry-sump powerplant plays monotonous heavy metal-rough and loud, hoarse but rhythmical. Beyond that, the explosive acoustics begin to develop an increasingly melodic pattern, climaxing in a concerto grosso that gets silenced abruptly by the merciless rev limiter.
Lamborghini quotes performance figures that put the Murcilago in the same league as the Ferrari Enzo, the Maserati MC12, the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, and the Porsche Carrera GT. Sant'Agata's most aggressive bull takes just 3.8 seconds to roar from 0 to 62 mph-just 0.2 second slower than the Enzo, as fast as the Benz and the MC12, and a tenth quicker than the Porsche. Yet the Murcilago roadster costs $319,250-hardly cheap but significantly less than these rivals. There's only one area in which the Lambo falls short, and that's top speed. The roofless two-seater pays tribute to its (lack of) aerodynamics by running out of steam at 200 mph.
The brutish two-seater is not a particularly useful intracity tool, but it takes some beating as a seemingly supersonic intercity express. When the going gets twisty the Murcilago never ceases to amaze. Fitted with 245/35ZR-18 Pirelli P Zero Rossos in the front and giant 335/30ZR-18 rollers out back, the winged roadster hugs the blacktop like a centipede with glue on its feet. The Murcilago roadster loves fast corners, whether they're secondary roads like certain sections of the SS1 or three-lane highways like the A1. A low center of gravity and permanent all-wheel drive certainly help out here.
To get the best out of the chassis, which was revised recently, it helps to be sensitive with the steering as well as applying the power early on corner entry, thus killing understeer. Thanks to a lot of attention to eliminate squat and dive, as well as using electronically controlled Koni dampers, typical mid-engined sports-car vices such as front-end pitch, excessive yaw, and emphatic body movements are not an issue.
The 60-degree V-12 relays up to 480 pound-feet of torque, but it does so through a viscous coupling to a pair of limited-slip differentials. This configuration likely will produce more grip and traction than the memory chip inside your head has ever been subjected to. You can switch ESP off, but if you try a burnout on dry blacktop, you are likely to smoke the clutch rather than the tires.
Although it's possible to provoke power oversteer in first and second gears, very few racetracks are tight enough to allow the Lambo to dance. On public roads, you get your kicks out of the entertaining dialogue between steering and throttle. It doesn't take long to develop a rhythm that links these inputs, lets them complement each other, and strikes the right balance between timing and effort. The Murcilago loves to be thrown into a corner, smearing through on the limit before storming with vigor onto the next straight. This sounds like PlayStation stuff, but to score big numbers, you need to keep the revs up, continuously adjust the steering angle, and lay the power down early. ...next page >>