We’ve just come across some new images of the recently announced Porsche Boxster Spyder, which will make its debut at the 2009 LA Auto Show next month.

A quick refresher for those who don’t know: Weighing in at 1 275 kg, the Spyder is powered by a 3,4-litre six-cylinder engine that produces 238 kW. Mated to the optional PDK (Porsche-Doppelkupplungsgetriebe) transmission, the Spyder accelerates from 0-100 km/h in 4.8 seconds before topping out at 267 km/h – with the roof down.

Click here for the Porsche Boxster Spyder article.

Erectile Dysfunction

Porsche has released the first images and details about the 2010 Boxster Spyder.

Described as the “…purist form of the Porsche sports car – light, powerful, consistently open, and very efficient”, the Spyder is powered by a 3,4-litre six-cylinder engine that produces 238 kW. Backed up by the optional PDK (Porsche-Doppelkupplungsgetriebe) transmission, the Spyder accelerates from 0-100 km/h in 4.8 seconds before topping out at 267 km/h – with the roof down. If that isn’t impressive enough, the roadster consumes just 9.3 L/100km in the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC).

To further maximise the Spyder’s sporting prowess, Porsche put the car on a diet – it weighs just 1 275 kg, which makes it the lightest model in the Porsche lineup – lowered the center of gravity, and added an all-new sports suspension.

In terms of styling, the car features a unique soft top, extra-low side windows, and two rear deck lid bulges, which are meant to resemble the ones used on the Carrera GT. Other design touches include modified front and rear bumpers, 10-spoke alloy wheels, and revised air intakes. Inside, the roadster boasts an exclusive interior with sport seats, ‘Boxster Spyder’ branded scuff plates, and a body-color centre console.

Set to debut at the Los Angeles Motor Show, the Boxster Spyder will go on sale in February 2010 for EUR53 100 (EUR63 404 in Germany, after a 19 percent VAT and country-specific features are applied). Pricing and availability for the South African market has not been confirmed.

Press Release (Click to expand)

Source: Porsche

Following a leak of the official gallery late last week, Audi has released the full details surrounding its new R8 Spyder.

Supporting rumours that the R8 Spyder would be available exclusively as a V10, the latest press release makes no mention of the 4,2-litre V8 powertrain from the original Audi R8 Coupe. Instead the R8 Spyder uses a mid-mounted 5,2-litre V10 engine producing 386 kW at 8 700 rpm and peak torque of 530 N.m at 6 500 rpm. This equates to over 75 kW per litre and zero to 100km/h in just 4.1 seconds with a top speed of 313 km/h with the six-speed manual transmission and Audi’s permanent all-wheel-drive. The brakes offer impressive performance with eight-piston callipers up front and four-piston callipers at the rear, framed behind 19-inch 10-spoke Y design wheels.

Unlike the Coupé, the Spyder does not have sideblades behind the doors, replaced by a retractable cloth top while maintaining the large, integrated air vents. The electrohydraulic soft top opens and closes in 19 seconds, even while driving at speeds up to 50 km/h and folds into a Z shape over the V10 engine. With the entire roof package weighing in at just 30 kilograms, the Audi R8 Spyder 5.2 FSI quattro weighs only 1,720 kilograms thanks primarily to its aluminium Audi Space Frame (ASF) body.

The bulkhead includes integrated rollover protection and a heated glass rear window which is lowered and raised automatically with the roof or independently at the press of a switch. The list of standard interior equipment include full-leather package featuring Fine Nappa leather, a Bang & Olufsen premium sound system, a deluxe automatic air conditioning system and heated seats. Along with front passenger airbags, the R8 Spyder includes head/thorax side bags in the backrests to protect the passengers in the event of a side impact.

The Audi R8 Spyder 5.2 FSI quattro will be launched in Germany in the first quarter of 2010 with a base price of EUR156 400.

Adapted from CarAdvice

Just like every other car which is slated to be ‘debuted’ at the Frankfurt Motor Show, the Audi R8 Spyder couldn’t make it just one more week until the show without being leaked and plastered all over the web. We’re just wondering what took them so long.

We teased pictures of the car a few weeks ago, however, official photos have now been officially leaked, although no word from Audi on the specifications. Judging from the pictures however, the alloy wheels, high-gloss black finish on the rear end and oval exhaust pipes make it likely the Spyder will be released with the 386 kW 5,2-litre V10 engine. Audi looks to have chosen a retractable folding hardtop as opposed to a removable targa top first seen in spy shots earlier this year.

Audi designers have also chosen to remove the side blades, which can be found on the coupe, in favour of vented twin ’speedster’ humps that fully cover the engine. As with other Audi cabrio’s, the Audi designers have also chosen to frame the windshield in aluminum, a rather nice touch if you ask us.

Adapted from 0-60Mag

The Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 Spyder will be launched in South Africa shortly. European buyers are already enjoying the upper echelons of top-down motoring. With this in mind, it’s only fitting that we hear what they have to say and get our own pulses racing with anticipation:

The road up the side of Tenerife’s Pico de Teide is about as diabolical as any I’ve driven. Countless blind corners, switchbacks, a marked absence of guardrails, and a fairly rapid elevation ascent all require focused attention. Teide happens to be the highest mountain in Spain, and is also an active volcano that seems to harbor its own weather system. Ensconced within our Lambo Gallardo LP 560-4 Spyder, we cut back and forth with alacrity, in and out of drifting banks of cloud, first brilliant sunshine, then gloom, streaming pennants of mist, rain, and without warning back into blinding sunshine. Add in the unholy wail a couple of feet behind your head, growing ever more vehement with every centimeter of throttle travel, and you’ve got a formula for utter sensory overload.

Last year Lamborghini unveiled the new Gallardo Coupe, designated LP 560-4 because of its longitudinale posteriore (longways rear-mount) V10, which with technical innovations like direct fuel injection pushed power to 560 cavallo vapore–more or less 560 metric horsepower, 552 hp according to SAE, or 412kW. It also carried revised aerodynamics like a more aggressive set of air scoops in the lower front bumper, new LED arrays in the head and taillights, as well as improved fuel economy and reduced carbon emissions, even with the bump in power.

The LP 560-4 Spyder takes all of that and adds a power folding soft top. Available in four colors–black, blue, gray, and beige–that top incorporates one hydraulic pump, six hydraulic cylinders, one electric motor and two electric actuators to fold up or down automatically in about 20 seconds.

Because of the extra equipment and chassis reinforcement, the Spyder weighs more than the coupe. This increases the zero to 100km/h run by about four-tenths of a second compared to the hardtop, total elapsed time being pinned at more or less four seconds flat.

Still, at the original LP 560-4 Coupe launch last spring, there were some who felt the estimate was somewhat conservative. Whatever number you’re inclined to use, this latest Lambo drop-top will make the American-standard zero-to-60 in under four seconds. That’s still pretty dang fast.

A deployable rear windscreen behind the seats functions as a wind deflector and makes a good bit of difference in reducing turbulence inside the cockpit at higher speeds. And whether the top’s up or down, the Gallardo Spyder is designed for unrestricted high speeds, all the way up to a claimed top speed of 325km/h. So in case you accidentally find yourself having too much fun, spring-loaded roll bars behind the seats can actuate in 250 milliseconds if a potential rollover situation becomes imminent.

What could be most incredible is its prodigious grip. Any sort of body flex is undetectable; the Gallardo Spyder may as well be carved from a solid piece of billet. The absence of roll or flex, the all-wheel drive system’s incredible road-holding ability whether you’re accelerating sideways or braking hard enough to fling tooth fillings at the windscreen–and let’s not mention the slingshot nature of 550-odd Italian stallions stampeding behind your head–make for a fairly singular experience. At no point did I ever feel as though I even brushed up against the car’s limits. But you’d expect that for 200 grand.

I’ve never been a huge fan of the convertible mystique, but on certain days, on certain roads and with certain cars, it all seems to click. And a big selling point for a car like the Gallardo Spyder is that you’re that much closer to the demonic symphony swelling behind your shoulders. To be honest, the Gallardo’s exhaust note really is, come on, just the slightest bit ridiculous. It sounds like something halfway between a free-revving race engine and the fanfare from a hell-spawned brass section. There’s little doubt it screams “Look at me, little people! Look at me!”

Adapted from EuropeanCarWeb

The Lamborghini Gallardo LP 560-4 Spyder was unveiled at the 2008 Los Angeles Auto Show and will be the star at this month’s Melbourne International Motor Show.

The Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 Spyder, of which its hardtop variant has just won UK Car magazine’s performance Car of The Year, is the latest rendition of the Gallardo. The Gallardo model is the best selling Lamborghini of all time and this latest spyder variant offers the performance and handling of the coupe, with the open air exhilaration that only a soft-top sports car can provide.

At the heart of the Gallardo LP560-4 is a fire-breathing 5.2-litre V10 engine developing 412 kW (at 8,000 rpm) for a superb power-to-weight ratio of just 2.77kg/hp. Coupled with a new suspension and a revised permanent all-wheel-drive system, the LP560-4 Spyder goes from zero to 100km/h in just 4.0 seconds and onto a top speed of 324 km/h.

Changes on the Spyder are in line with its hard-top brother and include a redesigned front and rear-end with characteristic LED daytime running lights. The Spyder also features a new folding top that runs via a hydraulic pump, six hydraulic cylinders, one electric motor and two electric actuators to open or close the roof in 20 seconds.

Adapted from ZCars