2016 Lamborghini Huracán LP610-4 Spyder UK first drive

What is it?

The Lamborghini Huracán LP610-4 Spyder completes the Italian firm’s range of more affordable mid-engined supercars. ‘Affordable’ is, of course, a term to take with a generous pinch of truffle-infused sea salt whenever it follows ‘Lamborghini’ in any given sentence and when it precedes ‘supercar’. But compared with some of the ultra-rare-groove, seven-figure Lamborghini V12 models that Sant’Agata has introduced of late, a £200,000 V10 really is relatively affordable. You might only need to sell off one four-bedroomed detached property from your extensive investment portfolio, or perhaps your least favourite thoroughbred racing mare, in order to fund it.

The car’s mechanical specification is a close match for the related LP610-4 coupé, conferring a 602bhp V10 on the car, as well as a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox, a clutch-based four-wheel drive system, double wishbone suspension and carbon-ceramic disc brakes as standard. Adaptive damping and active variable-ratio ‘dynamic’ steering systems are available as options, both of which were fitted to our test car.

In place of the coupé’s fixed roof is an electrohydraulically powered folding cloth hood – one of the only ones like it in the Huracán’s class, where folding metal roofs are now increasingly common, and which you might have imagined would be a lighter, simpler solution. Guess again. Because while a McLaren 650S Spider weighs a mere 40kg more than the equivalent coupé and a Ferrari 488 Spider 50kg more (both of which have folding hard-tops), the Huracán LP610-4 Spyder carries around 120kg more than its coupé sibling. Some reinforcement of the car’s hybrid carbonfibre and aluminium underbody also contributes to that weight gain, however.

What's it like?

Even by the low standards of mid-engined supercars, the Huracán coupé isn’t particularly accommodating. Offering only just about enough head and leg room to pass muster for most drivers, it’s not a car likely to attract owners of greater-than-average height. And you wouldn’t change that for a second if it also meant changing the car’s jaw-dropping roofline and show-stopping proportions. Like a painfully fashionable pair of Italian brogues, some cars can easily carry off feeling just a little bit uncomfortable.

But in this Spyder form and right-hand drive configuration, the Huracán may be borderline intolerable if you’re taller than about 5ft 8in. The high-mounted driver’s seat is squeezed closer to the steering wheel by Lamborghini’s drop-top conversion, so there’s a couple of inches less leg room adjustment available compared with the coupé – and it’s something the car can ill-afford to lose.

There’s also a compromise to pedal positioning apparent in the Huracán’s right-hand drive layout, with wheel arch intrusion forcing both accelerator and brake an inch or so closer to you than they’d otherwise be – and heaping greater pressure on what limited leg room there is. Taller drivers will therefore spend the better part of their first few trips juggling seat position against steering column extension and backrest angle, in a vain search for a driving position that leaves them comfortable at the controls and at least averagely well sheltered from the wind with the roof down. I’m 6ft 3in and I never found one.

Packaging apart, Lamborghini’s drop-top conversion is a broadly effective one. The car gets its own suspension tune relative to the coupé and rides more gently at all speeds, without any deterioration to handling response or body control that’s immediately obvious on the road – and without anything like as much scuttle or column shake as a Ferrari 488 Spider suffers with.