2013 Lamborghini Aventador Roadster First Drive

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After I turn onto Ocean Drive, he steps forward, nearly into my lane, and beckons with a low wave and smooth Cuban inflection. "Pay whatever you like - just valet with me!" This is why we're here. As big cities go, Miami is as good at pretending it's immune to obscene displays of conspicuous consumption as Los Angeles or New York City. But as in those cities, Miami denizens are actually paying close attention, behind their mirrored Persols, over cups of cortado. The tourists out on A1A are much more overt -- smartphones are already out and up, fingers poised to snap and record. But something is missing. Ah, the soundtrack. I hit the stereo button and immediately Daft Punk's "Around the World" untz-untz-untzes out of the open-air cockpit. My driving partner quietly moans, "Eurotrash ..." and tries to slump down into his seat, but there is no hiding, not with the top off and windows down. I relent and thumb the next track, Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind," which, despite geographical displacement of some 1300 miles, is awww yeah perfect. It has the requisite thumping bass line, catchy hooks, and deep, locally relevant lyrics: "...I got it made...If Jeezy's payin' LeBron, I'm paying Dwayne Wade." Like Shawn Carter, Miami Heat ballplayers LeBron James and Dwayne Wade definitely have it made. This Lamborghini Aventador roadster was built for just such men, ballers of exceptional talent and height who can justify its limitless headroom and afford its $ 445,300 price tag, probably with the spare change found between the couch cushions on their yacht. So what's new on the roadster that warrants an additional $ 65,600 over last year's Aventador coupe, other than raising (and losing) the roof? Key upgrades to both the roadster and coupe include automatic engine stop/start, engine cylinder deactivation, suspension refinements, and tweaks to the seven-speed, single-clutch transmission. Lamborghini's engine stop/start system employs high capacity capacitors it calls "supercaps," which discharge enough voltage to quickly start up the Aventador's V-12 with just the lift of the brake pedal at a fresh green light. Lamborghini claims multiple benefits for its auto stop/start system: "nearly imperceptible" start up times (roughly 180 milliseconds), a 6.6-pound weight savings over traditional starter motor/battery systems, improved packaging and fuel efficiency, and reduced CO2 emissions. The new cylinder deactivation system (CDS) also improves the latter two by shutting down an entire bank of cylinders under low engine load and speeds up to 84 mph, effectively turning the 6.5-liter V-12 into a 3.25-liter inline-six. All told, Lamborghini claims auto stop/start and CDS account for a 25 percent reduction in CO2 emissions and a 7 percent improvement in fuel efficiency on the European NEDC cycle. EPA fuel economy figures have yet to be measured for the roadster, but the coupe gained 1 highway mpg, to 11 mpg city/18 mpg highway with the same upgrades. (It also retained the $ 2,995 gas-guzzler tax.) The Aventador's V-12 is otherwise untouched and still cranks out 691 horsepower and 509 lb-ft of torque. Most impressively, says Lamborghini's R&D boss Maurizio Reggiani, is that approximately 368 lb-ft of torque is available at 1500 rpm in all seven gears. "The most torque at every gear of any car!" he says. But that torque is also part of the Aventador's problem. "No computer can shift a car like this better than a human," says Reggiani. "We try - but it is very difficult." Reggiani's team has tried to refine the seven-speed single-clutch transmission to reduce automatic shift harshness, particularly in Strada (street) mode. The primary goal: Lessen the fore/aft head toss that occurs on upshift. We haven't been shy about calling out this neck-snapping motion on the coupe, so we won't stop now. Shifts in the roadster maybe a touch better, but they are still unacceptably jerky for a mode meant for cruising around town. If this is the best Lamborghini can do via software tuning, it's time to focus on the hardware, concede the weight and packaging efficiencies of the single clutch (and let's face it, the Aventador is neither a compact nor lightweight supercar), and join the dual-clutch party. At Miami-Homestead Speedway, vertebrae-cracking upshifts are expected -- welcomed, even -- in Sport and Corsa (race) mode. Exiting the last turn onto Homestead's banking, the violent, 50-millisecond upshifts from second through fourth equate to speeds near 150 mph before the wisely positioned cone section on the high bank. Even with her top off, the roadster is a big girl; you feel every bit of her 4300 pounds in the infield transitions. It's not the retuned pushrod suspension, though. Reggiani say spring rates have been softened a touch and a bit more rebound has been added, but this doesn't seem to have affected turn-in. The roadster corners impressively flat, especially for a car that feels so wide and long. This feeling is amplified in the two stints I take in the Euro-spec right-hand-drive model painted a lovely shade of Azzurro Thetys, the light blue launch color. With my normal bracing points inverted, cornering forces are transferred to unfamiliar locations on my shins, knees, thighs, and elbows, underscoring just how hard the roadster swings her bulk through turns. She brassy and confident, easy to hustle at speeds short of full race. In the more familiar left-hand-drive models, she feels even faster - and hungry for aggressive inputs - but she does bite back. In Sport mode, lifting throttle for a tight, second gear corner momentarily sends jerky shocks through the transmission. This wasn't a one-time distraction, but behavior observed on separate lapping sessions in manual and automatic mode. Still, the best mode for overall driving is manually paddle-shifting in Sport mode. The shifts are quicker than the languid rocking motion of Strada mode (auto or manual), but nowhere near the brutal head thwackers of Corsa (manual only). You'll never get the quickness of a modern dual-clutch or the smoothness of a traditional automatic, but if you time the upshifts with a bit of throttle lift, you can approach the sensation of a manual transmission. Now about that top. Though a simple design, it manages to be a fiendishly complicated technological showcase. Technology first: The two-piece top is composed of three layers of composites. The outer two layers are made of RTM (resin transfer molding), a type of carbon fiber that is becoming ubiquitous among high-dollar supercars. The inner, structural layer is composed of Lamborghini's proprietary Forged Composite, a new type of carbon fiber developed by Lamborghini and Callaway Golf. Forged Composite uses a random arrangement of microscopic carbon fibers, instead of the long directionally woven strands found in RTM and other types of CRFP. The benefits of this new composite are numerous. Forged Composite is light and strong as you'd expect from carbon fiber, but it can also be drilled without losing structural integrity, and is much quicker to produce.

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