2015 Lamborghini Aventador Roadster

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  2015 Lamborghini Aventador Roadster

Power for the Aventador Roadster comes from a hand-built 6.5-liter twelve-cylinder engine tuned to deliver 690 horsepower at 8,250 rpm and 507 foot-pounds of torque at 5,500 rpm. The prodigious amount of grunt is generated by pure displacement; there are no turbos or superchargers hiding anywhere in the engine bay. While Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann openly told me that turbocharged engines haven’t been ruled out for the upcoming Urus SUV, he hinted that Lamborghinisti shouldn’t expect the Aventador to follow the industry’s downsizing trend and adopt a turbocharged engine anytime soon.

Officially, the 3,583-pound Aventador Roadster can reach 62 mph from a stop in 2.9 seconds and go on to a top speed of 217 mph. I didn’t verify that last statistic, but the acceleration is so brutally instantaneous that it feels much faster to 62. It goes fast, and it stays fast around corners thanks to a track-honed suspension system designed to virtually eliminate body roll and a light, rigid, carbon-fiber monocoque. You can take a bend at freeway speeds and not have to worry about ending up with the front end pointed in the wrong direction.