Category: Exotic Sports 
Price Range: £189,950 to £265,937
Awesome supercar presence and performance, incredible looks and unbeatable pose value.
Totally impractical, cramped and not for the faint-hearted.
A worthy, more user-friendly successor to the Diablo.
Let's get something straight. Driving a supercar is not like running your Clio to the supermarket. Lamborghinis had a particular reputation for being recalcitrant drives, but with the Murcielago the maker has entered a new era of user-friendly sports cars. The clutch is infinitely lighter than on a Diablo. The steering, too, is gentle and smooth at low speeds. It all means that this is a car you can drive around town - at least without totally panicking. There are still downsides: the visibility is hopeless behind, and it's so wide that you'll be in constant fear of getting wedged somewhere. The new gearbox is the biggest improvement over what came before. It is firm and overtly mechanical in its action but doesn't require you to have Popeye's biceps. That engine is a mixed blessing. It is surprisingly mild-mannered at town speeds but lift your velocity and it becomes less easy to regulate until, at even higher speeds, it becomes an on-off switch - the difference between all-out acceleration and intense engine braking. You can't award the Murcielago anything less than five stars for its fun rating because, well, what else could a 205 mph supercar be? The full marks are even more deserved as it is genuinely a better car to drive fast than its predecessor. There is a liveliness to the steering that aids you more than the Diablo ever did. Grip levels, too, are more progressive - you always know how hard you can push. There are still weak areas - all that power and engine weight at the back makes the nose light and understeery should you overcook into a bend - but overall this is a first, a Lamborghini with a forgiving nature. Turn off the traction control and things become more fidgety, but you can then use all that grunt to mess around, spinning the wheels at will in second gear and pinning yourself hard into the seats as you do so.
Where do you start? There's acceleration that almost swaps your incisors with your wisdom teeth, a top speed that would allow you to out-run a jumbo jet on take-off and grip that's second only to one of those impossible-to-remove lids on a jar of marmalade. From the moment you fire the engine and hear that V12 burst into glorious cacophony you know something special is on its way. And that something is a 0-60 mph sprint of just 3.8 seconds as the Murcielago rushes headlong into the next galaxy. Things happen so quickly that you are forced to try and separate your thinking from the moment. You plan as far ahead as you can, matching your pedal movements, steering angles and brake application as progressively as possible. Overstep on any of these and any leeway you might need to change your mind is almost non-existent.
