For about $280,000, Lamborghini's new Gallardo convertible offers wealthy drivers a breezy ride, sporty handling — and a very loud engine

KEY LARGO, FLA.—Want to one-up just about everyone at the yacht club this summer?

Show up in a Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder. Sure worked at the Ocean Reef private club here in Key Largo — the residents couldn't drool enough over this thing.

While the Gallardo coupe and the new convertible Spyder represent the "volume'' cars in Lambo's lineup, there still will only be 30 of these available in Canada this year.

Price? Well, if you have trouble relating to a car that will cost more than most Canadians pay for a house, better turn the page.

The final Canadian price hasn't been set yet. Some clues: Stephan Winkelmann, president and CEO of Lamborghini (and, despite his name, as Italian as it gets) says it starts at 144,500 euros, which converts to $175,000 (U.S.). But the U.S. price is $195,000 — probably equipment differences.

Winkelmann also says that in all markets it will be about 10 per cent more than the coupe (currently $252,000 Canadian).

I'm guessing closer to $280,000. Take it up with your dealer.

Anyway you slice it, that actually sounds like a fairly modest premium over the coupe, given the significant changes it required.

First, obviously, the top. It looks pretty small when erect, but it is still amazing how it can fold up and stuff itself in a very shallow shelf behind the seats and in front of/on top of the engine. It's all electro-hydraulic; one touch of a button and 20 seconds later, you're communing with nature.

The vertical glass rear window can be lowered when the top is up for added ventilation, or raised when the top is down, to reduce in-cabin drafts.

The top fits snugly when erect and doesn't materially compromise headroom.

Second, the structure. Major mods to the aluminum space frame, notably in the front windshield pillars, the door sills and the engine bay, help keep cowl shake to a minimum. Lamborghini is particularly proud — and rightly so — that in a 35 km/h collision test into a pole, the crash-test dummy's head does not contact the windshield header, even when the airbags are disabled.

Some form of roll-over protection is a really good idea in a convertible, but Gabrielle Gabrielli, head of research and development for Lamborghini, said the company didn't want to spoil the purity of the Gallardo's lines by sticking a roll bar onto the car. So it went with a pop-up concept; if the car senses an incipient major moment — as in the body assumes a 40-degree angle with the road — the hoops pop into place. Should the resultant roll-over not happen, either by good luck or good management, the deployment of the roll hoops will not damage the soft top.

The engine cover is huge and must be openable from either end (for engine access or top stowage). This demanded the lightest weight possible, so the part is made of carbon fibre, which is some 25 per cent lighter even than aluminum.

All in, the Gallardo Spyder weighs 1,570 kg — just 120 kg more than the coupe.

Since the coupe I tested a few months ago was built, all Gallardos have been upgraded to include the suspension lift system that allows the driver to jack the car up about 5 cm to reduce scraping on speed bumps or steep gas station approaches, 20 per cent quicker steering ratio and increased power from the engine — 520 horsepower versus 500 previously — thanks to new machining in the cylinder heads for better gas flow and new Lambda oxygen sensors, which enable more precise fuel metering.

Refreshingly, Lamborghini doesn't spend any time doing market research clinics.

"We think we know what a Lamborghini should be,'' said Winkelmann.

That doesn't mean the company doesn't listen to its customers. Two things they asked for was more exhaust noise and a sportier feel.

The first was accomplished by a three-way muffler bypass system that opens a baffle at 2800 r.p.m. on wide-open throttle, or 3800 r.p.m. when driving more gently.

This thing is loud. The previous Gallardo had a wonderful exhaust note; you'll spend even more time in the Spyder trying to find bridges to drive under and tunnels to drive through, just so you can goose the car.

And, of course, with the top down, you'll hear it all the more.

The second issue — sportiness — probably relates at least partly to Gallardo's full-time four-wheel drive system. Most four-wheel-drive cars feel a shade benign, since they stick so well and don't supply that slightly scary you're-gonna-lose-it sensation.

Lambo doesn't want to lose the advantages of four-wheel drive (although they might; read on ...) so they've lowered the gear ratios in the six-speed transmission to provide a bit more punch in through-the-gears acceleration.

Zero-to-100 km/h is dispatched in 4.3 seconds; the purely academic top speed is 314 km/h with the top up, 307 km/h with the top down — the price you pay for the aerodynamic disadvantages of an open car.

Lamborghini expects the Spyder to hold greater appeal to women buyers than the coupe, hence the expectation that the e.gear transmission, Lamborghini's variant on the paddle-shifted manual gearbox with automatic mode similar to Ferrari's F1 or BMW's SMG, will be even more popular in the open car than it is in the coupe (70 to 80 per cent currently, depending on market). This is not sexism in car marketing: it is demographic reality.

The e.gear actually works pretty well. Gallardo has a Sport mode that firms up the shocks slightly and reduces the shift time on the transmission to the point where shifts are quite harsh. The theory is that if you're driving fast, you'll sacrifice some comfort for the reduced shift speed.

In normal mode, it's not too bad. Paddle-induced downshifts are accompanied by a throttle blip so you're made to look like a hero gearshifter.

In automatic mode, it is nowhere near as good as a pure automatic, but it seems smoother than either BMW's or Ferrari's best efforts.

Nothing can compare with Audi/VW's Direct Shift Gearbox, however. Given that Audi owns Lamborghini, you have to wonder.

Gabrielli answered a question I had raised about the Gallardo coupe: Why the reverse selection button is way over to the left of the steering wheel, rather than on the centre console where it would appear more ergonomic and every other car with this sort of transmission has it.

He noted that it might be too easy for the driver or, worse still, the passenger to accidentally bump the Reverse button, which would clearly make your get-away from the stoplight the highlight of the 11 o'clock news.

He also told me why Gallardo has what appears to be an insane vertical divider in the front trunk, which makes it impossible to put anything but a quite thin briefcase in there (okay, two thin briefcases, one on either side of the divider). Turns out a U.S. government regulation demands that if your trunk is large enough that a child might accidentally climb into it, you need some sort of internal release mechanism. That apparently would be quite difficult to fit in the Gallardo, so they avoid the issue by making the largest available space too small for a child.

Gabrielli also noted that Lamborghini will remain a low-production company to maintain the exclusivity of the brand. He and CEO Winkelmann expect the company to continue to produce around 1,600 to 1,800 cars per year, with future developments possibly including a lighter-weight, even sportier Gallardo, possibly without four-wheel drive. It doesn't take a genius to note that Ferrari does all right with its rear-drive F430.

Obviously it's impossible to make objective comments about a car that costs a quarter of a million dollars, when a Corvette Z06 will deliver all the Gallardo can and possibly more for a third that price.

If you want a Gallardo and you can afford it, you'll buy it. End of story.

That said, the Gallardo Spyder is a sensational car to drive. Fast, spectacularly stable handling and surprisingly good ride comfort.

You will travel light, thanks to that divided trunk (there's virtually no storage space in the cabin although there is a cupholder). But you will not travel unnoticed.