Lamborghini Huracan Performante Spyder 2018 UK first drive

Ever since it was introduced four years ago, we’ve been waiting for the Huracan to realise its true potential. That moment eventually arrived last year when Lamborghini the Huracan Performante was launched.

Leaner, tighter and more rewarding than any Huracan before it, the Performante was the V10 Lamborghini we had been waiting for. Now, the Spyder has received the very same treatment.

The 5.2-litre V10 has been wrung out to 631bhp, while torque jumps up from 413 to 443lb ft. The weight saving is 35kg like for like, mostly down to the use of a lightweight exhaust system and what Lamborghini calls Forged Composites, which to you and I looks like chopped rather than woven carbon fibre.

The chassis has been completely reworked for sharper, more focussed dynamics and the tyres are stupendously grippy Pirelli P Zero Corsas.

The signature innovation, however, is Aerodinamica Lamborghini Attiva, a neat system of electronically controlled flaps in the front splitter and the towering rear wing that can divert air one way or the other to increase downforce one moment and reduce drag the next.

There is a price to pay if you prefer your Performante served topless. A less rigid structure for one thing, and 125kg of additional dead weight for another.

It must be said, this car is fundamentally at odds with itself. Building a lean, track-going machine out of the tubbier, less rigid Spyder model is like trying to make a speedy winger out of a heavy-set prop. It’s the wrong starting point.

But, somehow, Lamborghini has made it work.

On circuit the Performante Spyder will undoubtedly give away a few tenths to the Performante Coupe. Out on the road, however, where these topless cars will almost exclusively live, the Spyder is every bit as spectacular to drive as the hardtop. It is a masterstroke.

If you rattle it over a really rough patch of tarmac at speed, you’ll be aware of the structure shuddering slightly around you. And in the middle of third gear with the the throttle wide open it perhaps doesn’t feel as effortlessly accelerative as it might - although by the time 6000rpm has come and gone you won’t believe there could possibly be another car on the road that’s as fast.

You might also be faintly aware of the chassis getting a touch flustered when you ask it to do several things at once; turn into a corner while you’re hard on the brakes just at the moment the road drops away, for instance.