2005 Lamborghini Murcielago Test Drive

Raging Bull

What's it like driving the fastest production car on earth? Read our exclusive first American test drive to find out.

N.Y. City cop in beat-up blue and white car motions for us to lower the window:

N.Y. City cop: "What is that?"

Us: "A Lamborghini Murciélago."

N.Y. City cop: "Not the Diablo? Oh, it's the new one...right? [Wow, the cop knows about this car! They don't call them New York's Finest for nothing.]

Us: "Right."

N.Y. City cop: "What are you doing with it here?"

Us: "Uh...We're lost."

N.Y. City cop: "You don't know how lost, pal. You're in the South Bronx, third-highest murder rate in the city. You should get outta here, NOW."

Okay, so we took a wrong turn. And it was getting dark, and we didn't really know how to get out of the South Bronx, either. Shades of Bonfire of the Vanities.

We had found ourselves here in the course of driving the fastest production automobile on earth -- capable of almost 100 mph in second gear -- from Boston to Manhattan for the New York International Auto Show, which starts Friday, March 29. In the process, Forbes.com would be the first publication of any kind to drive this car on American soil, then you get to read about it -- and nobody gets hurt, right?

Well, that was the idea, anyway. But then there was all the fun we were having passing people, and hearing the enthusiastic crush of 12 cylinders pounding out more torque than five Honda Civics, and nearly as much as a pair of BMW M3s (at not much more weight than that exceedingly-fast-but-not-this-fast car, by the way). Anyhow, we got a bit lost on the way to the party.

Besides, people in the South Bronx really liked the car. There was the girl at the bus stop who shouted her enthusiasm at the top of her lungs -- words that are unprintable here but were nonetheless highly flattering; and the guy who slowed down, lowered the window of his Ford Focus and shouted, "wanna race?"

Then again, this kind of reaction wasn't unique to the South Bronx.

During the entire drive from Beantown in this truly astonishing $273,000 machine, people gawked, hustled up behind us in their Altimas and Tauruses and Corvettes and Neons wanting a closer look, blared their horns, waved, kissed the insides of their car windows -- in general, showing that they really really appreciated the Murciélago. And, yet, remarkably, the only police action we saw was the guy in the extremely lowered Mitsubishi getting pulled over on the Massachusetts Turnpike. Figures -- he was speeding up hard behind us, trying to catch a glimpse of the hottest car he'd ever seen.

We could go on in this vein, but we're sure you'd rather read about the car than about what people thought of it. You want the skinny, in other words, so here it is, our full accounting of the performance, feel, touch, mood and sheer aura of the latest, greatest Lamborghini ever.