World’s Fastest and Sexiest 200 MPH Convertibles
There is no logical argument for buying a convertible. It all goes out the window—or should I say through the roof—when you’re carving up your favorite road with the wind in your hair, the sun in your face and an 8 or 12 cylinder orchestra playing your favorite symphony inches from your seat. It’s about the emotion, the theater and the drama. This trio, in terms of pure motoring bliss, is as good as is gets.
Ferrari 488 Spider
Ferrari’s latest in a long line of V8 mid-engined coupes, harking back to the 360 Modena, gets the drop-top treatment, as did the 458 and F430 before it. This time around, however, Ferrari claim that the 488 Spider is as structurally rigid as its fully covered-up coupe counterpart, a 23% improvement in torsional rigidity (the ability to resist flex) over the outgoing 458 Spider.
I’m not sure what kind of black—or should I say red—magic the designers from Maranello are conjuring up to keep making each successive generation of mid-engined V8 sports car look better than the last, but they need to keep doing it.
Indeed, the motoring press at large are already under Ferrari’s spell, confirmed by the heaps of praise already being ushered upon the 488 Spider months before it’s to hit dealerships. But I don’t fault them. What man with a beating heart could be without emotion when in the presence of the quintessential 2-seat roadster?
Powered by the same 3.9-liter twin-turbo V8 with 661-hp and 561-ft.lbs of torque as the coupe, the 488 Spider is set to go on sale next summer with a base price of around $275,000.
Lamborghini Aventador LP 750-4 Superveloce Roadster
Less weight, more power and more fun. The ideal recipe for motoring nirvana as perfected by the Italians gets whipped up in Lamborghini’s composite kitchen and arrives on a Pirelli Corsa P Zero-wrapped platter to society’s elite.
The Superveloce Roadster is powered by the same 6.5-liter V12 in the Superveloce Coupe, up 50-hp from the standard Aventador for a grand total of 750-hp. Peak torque remains similar at 509-ft.lbs. With a dry weight of 3,472 lbs., the SV Roadster manages to drop 110 lbs. compared to its predecessor, the Aventador LP 700-4 Roadster, thanks in part to a removable two-piece hardtop made from carbon fiber, each piece weighing in at a scant 13.2 lbs.
It’s easy to get lost in the numbers: 0-60 in less than 3 seconds, a 217 mph top speed and a price tag of $530,075. But what really matters is the way it looks. Boys and grown men alike can’t help but stare at what is the world’s flashiest convertible—present company included.
McLaren 650S Spider
McLaren’s eagerly anticipated return to the automotive world as a manufacturer in 2011 was not unfounded; the McLaren MP4-12C immediately showed it deserved a place, if not top honors, among its exotic competition including the likes of the Ferrari 458 and Lamborghini Gallardo—two of the best in the business in their respective class. But it wasn’t until the 12C received some styling lessons from its big brother, the P1, and received a re-worked power unit now with 641-hp, that it began to receive recognition as the must-have mid-tier exotic as the McLaren 650S Coupe/Spider.
The McLaren 650S Spider—being built around an ultra-stiff and almost unbelievably lightweight 176 lb. one-piece Carbon MonoCell—erases any doubts about structural rigidity, a common concern with performance convertibles. It’s hard-top convertible mechanism does add 88 lbs. of weight, but as has become the norm for exotic convertibles recently, performance is virtually unchanged from the coupe version; 0-60 comes in about 3 seconds and a top speed of 204 mph is achievable.
