+ Click to Enlarge DEVIL IN DISGUISE: The Lamborghini Murcielargo Roadster - the road test co-driver got a nosebleed from the power of its brakes.

May 8, 2005
By Michael Booth

Price on the road - £189 950 (about R2.15-million).
Maximum speed - 320km/h (0-100km/h 3.8 seconds).
Combined fuel consumption - about 13.2 litres/100km.

At some point in nearly every sci-fi movie the baddie is jettisoned through a violent vortex into the vacuum of space, where he (or she) disappears instantly. This is also what happens to the scenery when you press the throttle of a Lamborghini Murciélago Roadster.

There is a hysterical 6.2-litre, V12 engine raging just behind my right ear. The noise is physically and emotionally overpowering: I can hear every piston thrust and meshing of tooth and chain.

As I move through its six-speed gearbox, each change accompanied by the satisfying clunk-ping of the aluminium gear stick through its traditional open gate, a low-speed chatter builds to an infernal rumble culminating in a harrowing crescendo akin to the death screams of a hundred racing bikes.

I am driving on a road where ordinary traffic laws do not apply - perhaps because Lamborghini recently donated a Gallardo to the Italian police.

Actually, it is a public road in northern Italy - perhaps official eyes are blind to my citrus-yellow missile.

You really do sense every single kilometre per hour accumulate, albeit over an unnaturally abbreviated period of time.
My passenger tells me that, at one point, I hit 150mph, but I am too busy staring intently at the horizon, frantically scanning the road miles ahead for errant, trundling Puntos to notice.

This is not quite as irresponsible as it sounds as, unusually for such a broad-hipped, highly strung, hypercar, the Murciélago feels utterly compliant (this is also a Roman road, with no turnings... and don't pretend you wouldn't have done the same). Driving a Lamborghini used to be like bullfighting on egg shells, requiring a tricky blend of brute force and supreme delicacy (I still go cold at the recollection of one particular, totally unprovoked, stomach-churning slide on the M23 in a Lamborghini Jalpa some years ago), yet the Murciélago's controls are light and easy.

The Audi-developed all-wheel-drive system plants four, lawn roller-wide Pirelli Zeros on the road, while the suspension has been slightly softened to give the slightly less rigid, open-top body a better chance of soaking up bumps and the brakes bring reality to a standstill at a rate that leaves me puffing in wonder. At one point my passenger develops a nosebleed (really).

Back at the factory, with the car steaming and clicking as it cools in the early spring sunshine, I peer through the showroom window at the prototype Countach of 1971. The Murciélago (Spanish for "bat") continues the company's tradition of building show-stopping carnival floats for platinum-selling, platinum-haired rock stars.

It may lack the delicacy of its Athena-poster star predecessor but, unlike Lambos of the past, the Murciélago is built with a precision and heft that would be totally alien to a Countach owner. Some of the old Italian supercar frailties remain, however: I was warned, for instance, not to remove the canvas roof as it was too complex to put back quickly should it start to rain (I'll remind you of the price again: £190 000) while, later, my passenger noticed a sign warning the driver not to exceed 100mph with the roof on (whoops).

But somehow the car's faults and vulgarities are excused by its boundless charisma. Taking a tour of the factory a little later, I spot a vivid lime green Murciélago with white ostrich skin interior making its slow progress along the production line. It looks sensational. - The Independent, London