Lamborghini Debuts 217-mph Roadster at Monterey Car Week

Lamborghini debuts the open-top edition of the 750-horsepower Aventador LP 750-4 Superveloce at the annual gathering of rich car guys.

Automobili Lamborghini chose the sunny venue of Monterey Car Week to unveil the $530,000 open-top Roadster edition of the 750-horsepower Aventador LP 750-4 Superveloce. The coupe version debuted at the New York International Auto Show in April, and that car’s attributes carry over to the new open-top edition.

That means lightweight carbon fiber everything, a stripped-down interior, magnetically adjustable shock absorbers and customized Pirelli P Zero Corsa tires tuned specifically for the characteristics of an all-wheel drive, mid-engined V-12 supercar.

The upgrades bring the SV Roadster’s top speed to 217 mph, and accelerate the car to 62 mph (100 kph) in just 2.9 seconds.

‘‘The Superveloce is the purest, most sports-oriented and fastest series production Lamborghini ever,” said Stephan Winkelmann, Lamborghini president and CEO said. “The Roadster version represents our commitment to satisfying our passionate clients with immensely emotional driving dynamics combined with an extraordinary open air experience.”

The Superveloce’s drive select system lets drivers switch between three different settings for power steering characteristics and electronic stability control behaviors.

As with the existing Roadster model, which has to make do with only 700 horsepower, the Superveloce Roadster’s roof opens with the removal of a pair of lightweight carbon fiber panels that fit together like hexagonal beehive puzzle pieces.

Lamborghini describes the seven-speed automated manual transmission as “robotized,” which rather sounds as if the Aventador has been assimilated by Star Trek’s Borg cyborgs, but in practice the gearbox is just another lightning-fast manual transmission with no clutch pedal.

However, the Aventador’s mechanistic, razor-sharp styling might well make the whole Borg assimilation thing seem plausible.

Photos by Automobili Lamborghini

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