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In case there's any doubt about who has the most ostentatious high performance car brand out there, the inhabitants of Spain's Canary Islands, just off the coast of Africa, have weighed in a final verdict.

A total of nearly 20 of the new Lamborghini LP-560-4 Spyder 2010 convertibles were sent to the island of Tenerife to be tested by journalists late last spring. On a small subtropical island that is crowded in places, this was akin to having a Formula 1 race on Maui, or a Mini Cooper race in a shopping mall.

Over a few unforgettable days, we chewed the roads to pieces blasting up and down the volcano Mt. Tiede-the highest point in Spain- in early summer to test drive one of the world's mostly beastly convertibles on roads twisty as spilled spaghetti.

I had the good fortune to return to Tenerife a few months later, to tour the wine country, enjoy amazing, consistent surf, and golf along one of the prettiest seaside courses on the planet. The Canaries have a sister-city relationship with Miami, but the climate is much more akin to the best parts of California-crisp ocean breezes very low in humidity, arid landscapes, and the wines reflect this perfection.

Chatting with locals, the talk always turns to "is this your first time here?" At which point I would relay that I had been part of the Lamborghini invasion a few months earlier. People would smile and say "oooooh, yes, those cars were incredible, did you get to drive them?"

I coincidentally sat by a Porsche executive on a plane ride on the way to Atlanta before that second trip to Tenerife, and learned that Porsche and several other elite marques had also hosted big test events on Tenerife-BMW had even launched a motorcycle here late in 2008. For Europeans, the Canaries are as close as Costa Rica or the Caribbean to Americans.

So I started asking the islanders who'd been wowed by the Lamborghini invasion if they remembered the Porsche event, or any others. They had no idea what I was talking about.

So there you have it: draw what you will of the impression the car makes.

Another advantage to ostentatious supercars? The lower the car's profile, the higher the driver's profile. Nobody misses a Gallardo, whether it's in front of or behind them. Though the car is barely higher than my waist when I stood beside it, it is the widest supercar made. The result? Polite European drivers that looked in their review mirrors and saw the wide low slung 560 quickly growing bigger in their rear view would quickly pull over to the right lane to let you pass, at up to 200 kph. You might get that treatment in parts of California, but not in the rest of the U.S. The 560 is so stable at these speeds you could sip coffee if you wished.

The volcano run was all that a driver could hope for, and the all-wheel-drive reassuring, but the roads were so narrow the widest-in-its-tiny-class stance of the Lambo could be a touch unnerving to the non-professional drivers, what with all the bicyclists hugging the non-existent road shoulders. And while it sole our breath to race among the Canarian pine forests with the top down, I never felt like the car could stretch its legs much beyond the occasional explosive passing stunt (point, aim...FIRE).

But the lower coastal roads were wide and uncrowded, and people got out of our way just to see the car go past. And there it is, the one major drawback of the LP 560. Because it looks like it could take off straight into the sky, it takes any modest seen-it-all driver and turns them into a showoff. There is no way to resist pulling in the clutch and whapping the rpms up so the screaming waving kids on the sidewalk can hear the whhrrr-pom-pom-pom of the exhaust notes.

Of the three Gallardo models I've driven, the 2010 LP 560 is far and away the most manageable, and the fastest ever. Lighter, and 60 more horsepower, but above all intensely improved and driver-friendly shifting. Top speed: 201 mph. At 3,400 pounds the Spyder is 221 pounds heavier than the coupe because open-roofed cars must have their frames stiffened, but a 6.1-to-1-pound to horsepower ratio is overkill any way you slice it. A new e.gear redesign cut shift times by an incredible 40 percent over the 2008 model, and 0-62 mph takes all of four seconds. Better still, the new direct-injection system chops both fuel consumption and CO2 emissions by the big 5.2 liter V10 by 18 percent.

Just be polite when you're tooling around in the Lambo, after you write that $200,000 check. Because it doesn't matter where you take it, you will be remembered...like it or not.