Cars
IT HAS THE FIRE OF THE FAMOUS FIGHTING BULL AFTER WHICH IT’S NAMED, BUT THE LAMBORGHINI HURACÁN ALSO HAS THE ELEGANCE AND REFINEMENT OF A SKILLED MATADOR, WRITES Nick Hall
Lamborghini’s Huracán melds the fire of a bull with the elegance of a matador
The world is awash with supercars. Mclaren, Porsche, even Audi can supply a missile that will outrun a plane and put your driving licence at risk from a cocoon of absolute comfort. And then there are the hypercars, such as the Laferrari and Mclaren’s P1. Among this embarrassment of riches, the Lamborghini Huracán holds its own. The bigger and more expensive Aventador might grab the headlines, but the Huracán, successor to the Italian marque’s all-time bestseller, the Gallardo, is the car that carries the company.
So what’s it like in the flesh? Simply epic— everything you’d expect from an Italian supercar with German parents (remember, Audi took control of the then-troubled company in the late 1990s). Its angles and
lines are clearly an evolution of the outgoing Gallardo. And the signature hexagonal design cues that broke cover in the Aventador are present in the front air intakes and inside on the vents and instrument cluster.
While the exterior maintains the Gallardo connection, the interior is a whole different animal. As in the Aventador, an LCD screen replaces traditional instruments, and the sloping centre console, complete with fighter jet-style covered start button, is elegance personified. The “Anima” switch on the steering wheel—which swaps between three driving modes, laid-back Strada, middle-ofthe-road Sport and full-fat Corsa—is the closest thing you’ll see to an admission that Ferrari’s “Mannetino” switch is a good idea.
If we’re being picky, there’s a touch too much plastic on show for a car that sells for around US$200,000, but the dash itself is coated in perfectly stitched leather and the Raging Bull logo on the wheel is a constant reminder of the pedigree.
The Huracán is a world away from the curvaceous Mclaren 650S and Ferrari 458 that are its most obvious competition; it’s a more cohesive, more utterly convincing, cooler package. Ferrari has got wrapped up in the highly profitable world of baseball caps and theme parks, and Mclarens are built with a focus on ice-cool detachment and mathematical perfection.
At Lamborghini launches, staff walk round in Abercrombie & Fitch-style team gear and the president hits the track for a few laps before joining the motoring media for lunch. The Lamborghinis so launched in years gone by were rebels defined as much by their imperfections as their brutal speed. But the
THE HURACÁN IS SO COMPOSED, STABLE AND UTTERLY UNFLAPPABLE THAT IT ALMOST DOESN’T FEEL LIKE A LAMBORGHINI
Huracán is a more grownup proposition.
The newcomer, which had a development budget the Italian marque could only have dreamed about in the past, shares a chassis with the Audi R8 that’s soon to make its debut. The hybrid aluminium-carbon fibre chassis has resulted in the Huracán being 10 per cent lighter and 50 per cent stiffer than the Gallardo, making it even more competent in corners, although you’d need to be a qualified racing driver to appreciate the difference in handling.
You don’t need to be a racing driver, however, to feel the power. The 5.2-litre V10, also shared with the coming Audi R8, pumps out 602bhp, which is ridiculously muscular for a base-level car. It’s enough to blast the Huracán to 100km/h in 3.2 seconds and all the way to 325km/h.
Breaking with Lamborghini tradition, this car comes with a real dual-clutch automatic, rather than the old robotised manual that the marque stood by for far too long. That means you can leave it in auto and mooch around town with none of the grinding and shakes that were an integral part of the old Lamborghini experience. The Huracán is as smooth as silk, though thankfully it still sounds more aggressive than a steroid-fuelled prison riot with a heavy metal backing track.
It’s unnervingly good in corners, thanks to the chassis and constantly evolving four-wheel-drive system. It just sticks. You practically couldn’t slide it on a public road. And it feels like a rear-wheel-drive, thanks to 70 per cent of the power being directed to the back wheels. That only changes when the computers sense the Pirelli P Zero Corsas may be about to lose grip and feed power to the front to head off disaster. You’d have to be driving like a loon to get into trouble in
the first place, though. The brakes damp down excess speed in a heartbeat and the superb magnetic suspension keeps the car supple and level even when thrown into bends.
The Huracán is so composed, stable and utterly unflappable that it almost doesn’t feel like a Lamborghini. Cars from this marque used to inspire fear and respect in equal measure, and it was their sheer ferocity tied to stunning good looks that made them fantasy material for petrolheads the world over.
It might have a fierce moniker—the Huracán, like many of its stablemates, is named after a famous fighting bull—but it’s the least intimidating to wear the Lamborghini badge. Audi has tamed the raging bull to the extent that a gran could drive one, fast, without planting it in a wall. The rebellious teenager has grown into sophisticated maturity. Ferrari, Mclaren and Porsche should all be very nervous, because the Huracán is the best Lamborghini ever.