The Most Theatrical New Supercar - Lamborghini Huracan EVO Spyder!

Huracan Evo Spider. Now, I'm going to approach this video from, I guess, a bit of a unique angle. Fundamentally, I guess, I have already reviewed this car in the Huracan Evo, the non-Spider version. And while they are a very similar platform, obviously, the primary differentiating factor here is, of course, the fact that you can retract the roof. You're able to do that up to 31 miles an hour and it will retract itself in 17 seconds. Very convenient when you are looking to take the theatrical level and turn it up to 11. But for me, convertibles, Spiders, retractable hardtops, whatever the genre the car may be, for me, it's all about one thing and that is purely distilled emotion. That's what these cars are all about. Arguably, removing the roof off a car makes it dynamically worse. I mean, I always liken it to when you take the lid off a shoebox, you're able to twist it a lot easier. It's not until you put the lid back on again that the whole structure becomes a lot more stable, a lot more taut. Now, on a very basic principle, that's the same with a car. You take the roof off and the structural integrity of the chassis is inherently compromised. So, what manufacturers do is they add in strengthening in order to stop the scuttle of the chassis. What that ends up doing is adding weight. Now, in the world of supercars and sports cars, more weight is generally bad news. It slows down performance generally. But what it does is increase every other aspect of driving. Now, in these days, in the modern era of sports cars and supercars, the engineering has advanced so much that, to be fair, you'd have to be absolutely on it in this thing to be able to differentiate the feeling between the Coupe and Spider. But for me, it comes back down to stimulating the senses of the human body. Now, speaking of which, the human body is acknowledged to have five senses. Touch, sound, sight, smell, and the last one, which is going to be pretty tricky in this instance, taste. We'll get onto that at the end. Taking the roof off this, for me, is designed to heighten every single one of those senses. So, let's just start with the sound. Now, this is running the familiar 5.2-litre naturally aspirated V10 engine. It's actually pretty much directly transplanted from the Huracan Performante. You could almost treat this car and approach it like a sort of comfortable Performante in that it operates the same engine, but it's just dampened and improved to a degree that makes it a little bit more road-biased than track-biased. By taking off the roof, all of that sound, all that theatre, all of the pops and bangs on the overrun from the unburnt fuel in the exhaust, if you thought it sounded good in the Coupe, this is just outstanding. It's like mini-grenades going off. If I was to just drop these windows here with these cliff sides next to me… On attribute, sound, I think I'd give Lamborghini and the Evo Spyder a 10 out of 10, wouldn't you? Like my own little micro-grenades going off behind my head. Now, let's just slow it down and talk about the other attributes, sight. I mean, as far as the way a supercar looks, Lamborghini have got this absolutely nailed. Now, it's rare for me that I acknowledge that, to my eyes at least, that a Spyder looks better than a more conventional hardtop. In the case of the Evo Spyder, I just think the sculpture is absolutely nailed. These buttresses that sort of cascade off the back of these headrests and form the canopy which tucks under the foldable roof. Sculpturally, absolutely stunning. This era of Lamborghini has a very angular design language, and how they programmed that into these flying buttresses is so awesome. And I just think there's something about it. While it looks cool with the roof up, Spyders with the roof down look even better. There's just something about them. It gets this extra squat, and I think what's brilliant is, visually, going back to sight, it opens up the whole interior. And once again, being in and around a Lamborghini is all about sense of occasion. So, when you walk over to this car, before you've even turned it on, before you've even heard the sounds that I was just talking about, you approach it and you're excited. It makes your heart flutter just by looking at this thing. And then, when you approach it and you realize how much more of this car you can see because of the roof coming off, the sight, 10 out of 10, once again. Now, let's just talk about smell. This is a really strange one, but just by the nature of it being an internal combustion engine, it's a V10, it is exploding. It is creating fire from 10 cylinders with inside an engine that sits directly behind your head. And then, every now and again, when you lift off the throttle, there is unburnt fuel from those 10 cylinders, which haven't quite exploded enough yet. They explode, and when you're following a friend, which just so happens to be in exactly the same car, take Parker, for example, who conveniently happens to be in front of me right now, you can smell it. You can smell the rubber. These are brand new cars. You can smell the brakes getting hot, even from my own car. And then, following Parker, when you're close enough, and particularly when you join each other and you park up to basically laugh like little girls in a playground, you can smell the car. Everything that's interacting with itself, brakes, clutch, tires, unburnt fuel, the smell as well, 10 out of 10. So, so far, we're doing pretty good in the sensory stimulation department. So, sensory stimulation number four, touch. How does that translate? Now, this might be super obvious, but I'm just going to take up this window, so we're not blasting even too much wind noise, which actually, in this car, isn't too bad, considering. Yes, touch. Well, this one happens to be specced with an Alcantara steering wheel. Alcantara, for me, as soon as you interact with that, both from a sight and touch experience, it just says fast, doesn't it? Alcantara is synonymous with racing cars, sports cars. It's just a sporty feeling. So, as soon as you lay your eyes and your hands on Alcantara, you just know this thing means business. But there's much more to it than that. I'm interacting with paddles here. The seven-speed twin-clutch gearbox on this, it's one of the best in the game. It's so tactile. When you interact with those, not only does it feel like you're pulling on a rifle bolt or even the trigger itself, when those pops and bangs happen, they resonate through your spine. It has a vibration that goes from the engine directly through this incredibly stiff aluminium and bonded carbon chassis, and the touch and the feeling and the interaction with it. Once again, drama, theatre, tingly touches, so great. Okay, so taste might be a slightly extreme extrusion over how this thing stimulates the senses, but from every other aspect... Naturally aspirated V10 glory. And to finish it all off with the cherry on the sensory cake, as it were, this is also an Italian car. Now, I want to talk about the sixth sense, the sense that is hard to put into words, the sense that's hard to convey on camera. It's one of those things that you have to experience. That sixth sense is the culmination of the previous five that I was just talking about. I think the easiest way to explain it is the emotional sense, the way the car makes you feel. Those five senses combined in this car, spine tingling, I guess. I guess that is the way of explaining it. And I think cars like this are more important than ever. We are in an automotive space where increasingly things are becoming more efficient, and as a result we've got like fuel particulate filters which are being bolted onto the back of our exhaust systems. And while that's great for reducing CO2 output, it's not great for emotional input. Natural aspirated V10s don't care about things like that. They care about stimulating you to the core. And Lamborghini, while there are attributes which aren't the best, for example, the visibility in this car, the roofline of this is almost directly in view of my sight. So I'm sort of slouching down a bit in this chair so I can see through the windscreen a bit clearer. And the seats aren't particularly comfortable. And while this does have rear wheel steering and it has massively improved the dynamics of the car, it's probably not the most natural integration of rear wheel steering that I've experienced, yet it has massively evolved the dynamics of the car. You kind of don't care. And that's I think what Lamborghini is all about. Practicality is not a word that was part of the design brief of this car. Theatre, stimulation, sexiness and just raw Italian prowess was definitely part of the DNA design brief. And I think when it comes to the sixth sense, they've absolutely nailed it. As always guys, thank you so much for watching and I shall see you next time. Ciao!