Review: Fantasy realized: Driving a Lamborghini on the track
Ahhh, the sheer joy of blast off in a Huracan Spyder.
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In today’s review, we shall relive last summer in Massachusetts as I did, inside a Lamborghini Huracan Spyder. Do not look at the spring rains falling outside your window. Just picture a sunny, 80-degree afternoon in the Ware and Palmer hills, exiting a dedicated pit lane onto turn one, fingertips primed for the next gear change, while you rocket out of turn two with the engine roaring behind.
Palmer Motorsports Park seems like a fine place to test an exotic Italian sports car without breaking any laws. The 2.3-mile circuit runs through 75 acres of rocky forest. I’m happy to be here with Daniel Bloom of Apex Driving Events, who has graciously invited me to lap my Lambo as many times as possible.
At the typical race track, reserving a time slot is either impossible or costs far more than I make in a week. But Palmer Motorsports Park is a private members-only track that doesn’t host any sanctioned races, so instructors like Bloom can run a driving school without much interference. Palmer is a relative unknown among car enthusiasts, so the track staff is happy to hear a Huracan V-10 ripping through the trees.
The track isn’t totally finished when I visit. There are no runoffs and no curbing. There are no straightaways. It’s just a churning, rubber-burning squiggle that never leaves the front wheels pointed straight. It’d be much better for a car with half of the Huracan Spyder’s 602 horsepower, if not less. I leash myself, since I have to drive back home with the same tires and brakes. The other “students” in Shelby Mustangs and Porsche GT3s have been here before. They’re absolutely scorching it. But it’s not worth pummeling a $287,000 car into a steel barrier. No one believes those kind of mistakes when they find out it’s a crumpled Lamborghini.
Still, on this perfect day and sticky pavement, the Huracan Spyder is spectacular. It eats every corner as effortlessly as a Lexus sails down the highway. The precise steering comes alive in my palms and lets me trace the car’s path as if it’s connected to my forearm tendons. Stomping on the carbon-ceramic brakes, even under a slight steering angle, never upsets the stiff chassis. It’s such a secure, confident machine. Getting back up to speed is a worthy endeavor, as there is no gut-punching turbocharger to bail you out of low-speed corners like on a Ferrari 488. Full torque is available at a high 6,500 rpm. You have to work the engine hard to the 8,500-rpm redline for max power, and the reward is a bellowing, discordant exhaust note that’s so effusive it should be translated to sign language. A 488 does not thrill quite like the Huracan.
CHECK YOUR SIX: Hexagons dominate the Huracan Spyder’s fighter pilot-inspired interior, including the air vents.
Even the car’s color is sensational. The metallic Grigio Lynx over red leather and silver-painted “phone dial” wheels is the most tasteful, endearing color combination I’ve seen on any Lamborghini. There are Italian tricolore markings embroidered into the hexagonally stitched seats, which match the hexagonal side view mirrors, air vents, engine radiator vents, and dashboard controls. There are enough wedges and extreme angles on this car—the raked windshield leaping into the driver’s forehead, for instance—that an extreme color isn’t necessary.
Restraint is a paradoxical trait for a mid-engine supercar, yet after a sweaty day at the track, why not raise the triple-layered soft top and blast the ice-cold A/C? In the standard Strada driving mode, the Huracan hushes the exhaust and shuts down half the engine to save fuel. It’s quieter and gentler than my five-cylinder Volvo. The seven-speed automatic shifts with figure skater grace, until bystanders beg me to rev it in neutral and tear apart their eardrums. Gray or lime green, a Huracan is anything but humble.
We must snap back to present-day life, back to the foot of snow bleaching my office windows. Lamborghini can tackle winter, in fact, just not here in Massachusetts. For $6,200, excluding airfare to the Italian Alps, you can attend a two-day driving school where you can muscle a Huracan or Aventador across snow and ice, then dine at a mountainside resort. (squadracorse.lamborghini.com/academia). Or you can wait for this summer and buy or lease your own dream machine. Make the right choices, and reality can be an escape all by itself.
Clifford Atiyeh is a contributing editor to Car and Driver and can be reached at [email protected].
2017 Lamborghini Huracan LP 610-4 Spyder
THE BASICS
Price, base/as tested (with destination and gas guzzler tax): $267,545/$287,225. Fuel economy, EPA estimated: 14 city/20 highway. Fuel economy, Globe observed: Not important. Drivetrain: 5.2-liter V-10, 7-speed dual-clutch automatic, all-wheel-drive. Body: 2-door, 2-passenger roadster.
THE SPECIFICS
Horsepower: 602 @ 8,250 rpm. Torque: 413 lb.-ft. @ 6,500 rpm. Overall length: 175.6 in. Wheelbase: 103.1 in. Height: 46.5 in. Width: 75.7 in. Curb weight: 3,650 lbs.
THE GOOD
Engine perfection, race car performance, edgy design that doesn’t overwhelm.
THE BAD
Low-res backup camera.
THE BOTTOM LINE
In our computerized age, a supercar wrought with emotion. Also one of the best defenses against electric cars.
ALSO CONSIDER
McLaren 570S, Ferrari 488 Spider, Mercedes-AMG GT R.
