Frankfurt motor show: Lamborghini’s new electric supercar with sideburns

While electric and plugin power, and more and more green motoring, is certainly to the fore at the Frankfurt motor show this year, Lamborghini clearly didn't get the memo. The Huracan LP610-4 Spyder is such an old-school Italian supercar that you can feel your sideburns grow just looking at it.

Of course, under the skin, it’s far more sophisticated than anything turned out in the seventies, but up top, with its atomic door stop styling, roofless construction and wild V10 engine, it feels very old school.

It's predecessor, the Gallardo Spyder, was the best-selling open Lambo ever, and Lambo's boss Stephan Winklemann, said that "we expect the Huracan Spyder to exceed its predecessor in every way."

To do that, it uses the same 5.2-litre V10 with 610hp driving all four wheels as the coupe (and hence the 610-4 name). There’s a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox and, for the first time, cylinder deactivation under light throttle loads to help save fuel. Lambo’s official fuel figure is given as 23mpg – good luck matching that…

It gets a fabric roof, which is available in black, brown or red. It takes just 17secs to open or close and you can do that at speeds of up to 50kmh (presumably the only time you’ll ever see a Huracan travelling so slowly). In spite of the extra soft-top gubbins, weight has been kept down to 1,542kg and the car’s aerodynamics can find up to 50 per cent more downforce at speed than could the old Gallardo’s, while being 40 per cent stiffer.

As for performance, maximum speed is on the naughty side of 320kmh, while 0-100kmh is despatched in just 3.4secs. All that performance potential is kept in check by massive 380mm carbon brakes.