Enjoying the pain from a Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder

Each year, the world's super-fast sports cars get a little more polished. Even in the realm of overpowered, oversexed Batmobiles, supple suspensions and smooth-shifting dual-clutch transmissions are becoming de rigueur. Which is why it's refreshing to drive an old-school hellion like the Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 Spyder.

This is a car that never lets you forget that you're piloting a 198-mph wedge of Italian testosterone. From the howling symphony of V-10 combustion to the starchy ride to the single-clutch automated manual transmission, the Gallardo is happiest when it's being throttled like the supercar that it is. The question is, where are you going to drive it like that? Cities are where you find high concentrations of the masters-of-the-universe types who can afford Gallardos, but they're also home to gridlock and potholes and joyless right-angle corners.

But every city has its secret country road, a nearby spot where you can run to redline and then bang a few rev-matched downshifts into a hairpin corner. A place where you can pretend you're somewhere else, somewhere better. We trekked to that mythical stretch of pavement in Boston, within sight of the city skyline, to point the LP550-2's undriven front wheels into a few apexes. And it was glorious, right until we learned that there's no outrunning rush hour. Even in a Gallardo.