The long hello
The first rear-drive Huracan was a little neutered, and deliberately so. Now the two-wheel-drive V10 Lambo gets the Evo treatment – and a handy 602bhp…
Last year we published our dystopian The Last Gallon story, imagining what we’d fuel with our last dregs of super-unleaded in a post-apocalyptic Grimsby. Right now, it’s as though I’m trapped Tron-like in those pages.
I’m ripping over the Pennines, a huge hunk of engine out back helping adjust attitude and smear number 11s over the road. There are great peels of V10 thunder on every downshift. It’s pre-lockdown, the day before they’ll close the pubs. For a few more hours driving for the sake of driving is still okay, and I’ve got my hands on a supercar I think I might actually fuel with my last ever gallon: the new Lamborghini Huracan Evo RWD.
It is a last gasp of naturally-aspirated, V10, rear-wheel-drive awesomeness, the better-to-burn-out-than-fade-away supercar you’d gun ’til the last drips of 98 sputtered through its fuel lines and then abandon with the melancholic euphoria of knowing no one, anywhere, could ever do that again. Or at least until we’re told it’s safe to leave home again. Time’s ticking. Where to go? Who to see? Gut feel and do it.
I point the Lambo north, back home to the Lake District, to see family at a visiting-hours distance, to run it hard over the roads I drove when I first got my licence, and to explore those that weren’t much further afield but that I never quite reached.
Climbing aboard, there’s the intimidation I always feel in a Lamborghini, that tingle of fear its brilliant rivals have dialled back as they’ve become more usable. You sit low in our car’s (optional) manually adjusted carbon-backed seats, the nose tapered to a spear-like point, muscular haunches filling the side mirrors, and a slatted rear screen with all the rearward visibility of a Velux roof window. It’s like lying down on an arrow drawn tight in an archer’s bow. Flick up a faux (but appropriate) missile-switch cover, press the red starter button and that V10 barks rambunctiously awake. It’s terrifying – and I’m still in a car park in Bedfordshire.
There’s even more intimidation here than there is in other Huracans, this being the RWD, the one Sant’Agata dubs the purest of the line, closest in spirit to its also-rear-wheel-drive GT3 racer (though the upcoming Super Trofeo Omologato range-topper will steal that crown). And yet the Evo RWD costs from £172,500, which is like 2-for-1 loo roll in the context of the £34k more expensive Huracan Evo and similarly expensive Ferrari F8 Tributo. Lamborghini would probably prefer that we don’t mention the new Audi R8 RWD – an even more affordable but very different car.
The starting point is last year’s Huracan Evo, from which
Lamborghini deletes all the stuff you’re supposed to covet, including all-wheel drive, rear-wheel steering, and the near-sentient Lamborghini Dinamica Veicolo Integrata system, an electronic brain that predictively governs the suspension, steering, all-wheel drive and so on. (Confession: Lamborghini has also adjusted the bits of the design it can cost-effectively tweak but I can’t tell, even if I do adore that it looks like a pimped stealth fighter in matt Viola Mel.)
It’s why this Huracan is 33kg lighter at 1389kg without fluids (we’d have guessed closer to an 80kg saving, but we’ll get to that), with the majority of those kilos shorn from the front axle, shifting the weight distribution from 43/57 per cent front-torear to 40/60. Another bonus.
But this significant de-contenting also removes some of the stuff keen pedallers might crave, to stop this entry-level ⊲
Lamborghini getting ideas above its station: the magnetorheological adaptive dampers and Dynamic steering fitted to our test car are now options, while our car sticks with the standard 19-inch alloys and cast-iron brakes. The regular Evo gets 20-inch wheels and carbon-ceramics thrown in. In part, the latter account for why the RWD isn’t another 40-50kg lighter but, again, you can option it all back in.
The biggest mental hurdle might be the 29bhp performance deficit, but factor in the weight saving and that leaves the RWD just 11bhp off the other Huracan in the more important powerto-weight stakes. I’m already sold, and just you squeeze that loud pedal to the floor and tell me you’re underwhelmed. The Huracan has a 5.2-litre naturally-aspirated V10 – an engine that essentially throws a 602bhp Molotov cocktail to the rear tyres and spins the crank to an incendiary 8500rpm. All this and a throttle response to die for.
It gargles bassily and indulgently through its lower reaches, simmers happily in the midrange (despite peak torque not arriving until 6500rpm), then ignites the afterburners at around 5800rpm and runs to the redline with such ferocity that there’s a surreal weightlessness to the car, the same giddy slightly-outof-control sensation as bouncing high on a trampoline. You might want that missing peak power on your Top Trumps card, but on the road? No way. This thing is rapid.
We meet the Lamborghini people at the Millbrook proving ground and run round the hill route and high-speed bowl with an instructor alongside, but it’s greasy-damp, I haven’t been here for maybe a decade… The steering stands out, with an ease and delicacy that betray the unshackled front end, and I catch a slide over a blind, tightening crest that might’ve been less dramatic with all-wheel drive. But I definitely haven’t got ⊲
under the RWD’s skin by the time we’re cutting up the A1 to drop by the o ce.
Slowly, the RWD reveals itself. This is not the punishing long-distance companion you might expect. There is significant road noise from the 19-inch P-Zeros, which makes conversation like chatting at a merely averagely loud nightclub, but the new sat-nav works well (shame it isn’t also displayed in the digital dash) and, in Strada mode, the dual-clutch auto gearbox mapping couldn’t be sweeter. The shifts themselves are surprisingly civilised too, especially if you were reared on Lambo single-clutch autos. Even full-bore gearchanges bleed into each other almost disappointingly seamlessly.
There’s compliance to what is a pretty firm and focused ride. Yes it can thwack rudely over expansion joints, and it’s aggressive at lower speeds, where you’re aware of each individual wheel dealing with each individual bump, but that’s the nature of the beast. Just be extremely wary of the fixed dampers (ours are adaptive), especially matched to the 20-inch alloys. The sports seats, which work well to connect you intimately to the road, are perfectly tolerable. Mind you, alcantara on the seats and steering wheel would better complement the no-bull attitude.
We track west over the M62 as the sun drops, getting tangled with cars that cluster around us, mostly soot-spewing decadeold 320ds (must’ve been remapped). Then it’s up the M6 and into darkness. My family drops by to briefly say hello as we jetwash the car near my old village, then we’re up for sunrise at the spectacular Kirkstone Pass in Windermere, a frost crisp on that 1165mm-high roof (40mm lower than a Ferrari F8’s).
The Lambo feels wide here. So after my dad drops by to help with car-to-car shots in his Defender, we head further north, tracing Ullswater’s western edge before crossing back over the M6 and up into the Pennines. The green, farmed lower ground shifts to wilder, starker moorland with calmer topography and broader brushstrokes of tarmac.
Here the Huracan really settles into its stride, with damping that’s well controlled if occasionally short of answers when the long front overhang scuffs over really tricky, quicker undulations. The V10 soars past 5000rpm, these wide-open expanses proving that, much as we rave about them, you just don’t need the extra power or torque of the latest twin-turbo V8s; not with power delivery this linear and outrageously strong. This engine’s bandwidth fizzes all the way to a white-hot 8500rpm peak, and bundles in an old-school Formula 1 soundtrack.
As the road coils up Hartside Pass, the delicacy of the steering again stands out, though there remains a layer of anaesthetic between you, the leather-wrapped rim and the road surface. In tighter corners the ratio helps the Huracan aggressively hook in to the apex, but it’s lazier in faster sweepers, a shade of indecision where I want the Huracan to bite hard. I never totally acclimatise to the variable ratio, but trust builds with time.
The Gallardo Balboni started this rear-wheel-drive bloodline in the modern era, and while it could be flamboyant, there was a buffer of understeer to chew through first. This RWD Huracan is far more positive: its standard brakes (eight-piston fronts!) still deliver strong feel and good honest stopping power for the road, and the front end stoutly resists scrub, giving you the confidence to drive it hard at the apex. The Huracan settles and bites, and as it does so that V10 brings its weight to bear on an equally well tied-down rear end, more so than in those twin-turbo V8 rivals, with their lighter engines.
It’s not scarily pendulous, the rear-biased weight distribution instead helping rotate the car fluidly through turns. Oversteer occurs gently and progressively, the car gripping and straightening sweetly if you’re spooked. Suddenly the Huracan doesn’t seem quite so wide and you forget that you’re driving a spear on wheels; instead it feels malleable, as you might expect of a car comparable to a 911 GT3 RS in size and weight (and 89mm shorter and 59kg heavier than the F8 Ferrari). And did I mention the sensational throttle response? With the rears starting to slip over the road surface, you’re free to wap out tunes on the loud pedal and get the ⊲
In faster sweepers there’s a shade of indecision where I want the Huracan to really bite hard
Next to this Huracan, Ferraris and McLarens both feel less gnarly and intimidating
rears smoking: it’s why you bought the rear-wheel-drive one.
Lamborghini makes a point of how it’s specially recalibrated the stability control for the RWD– it’d be slapdash not to – and how those modes remove upper shirt buttons as you progress through Strada, Sport and Corsa modes to become increasingly hirsute. It feels nicely liberal in Sport when you’re tipping into a corner off-throttle, but too keen to damp everything down if you gun it early. The great pity is you can’t configure your own personalised ‘Ego’ driving mode. Calmer suspension and steering calibrations matched with a more aggressive Sport or Corsa powertrain mode and a free pass to tweak the ESC would be the ticket, but it’s impossible in all Huracans, yet so easily remedied with a software twiddle. Frustrating.
So you select Corsa. The digital revcounter switches from a circle to a fan of peacock-like plumage and the dampers and power-steering pump fill with concrete. On the upside the V10 rumbles with a deep, throbbing heartbeat and, when you pull at those long, slender paddles, there are hungry induction sucks like a swimmer gasping for air, and extravagant flourishes of phlegmy V10 cry. Gearshifts are also now delivered by sledgehammer, which only makes you crave more adjustability, to soften that edge to Sport’s merely strong punch.
But it’s also in Corsa that you can make the RWD dance, feeling it arc and flow where all-wheel-drive Lamborghinis grab like they’re falling from a cliff face. By contrast the rhythm and balance of the RWD are sublimely satisfying.
We head up to Hartside Summit as the sun sinks behind the Lakeland peaks to the west. There are flaws to this Lamborghini – McLarens and Ferraris both steer and ride with more polish, and if you want something similar but more rounded (and loads cheaper), buy the Audi R8 RWD. The Lamborghini takes its own path, not just moving the needle a little further compared with the Audi with which it shares so much, but cranking it right into the red, to the extent that both McLarens and Ferraris feel less gnarly and intimidating next to this Huracan.
This focus inevitably brings compromise, but the Huracan Evo RWD’s aggression and anger fill it fit to burst with drama. It’s why it’s such an event, and you can still do normal things without cursing every time you climb aboard. It’s everything I want from a Lamborghini, no matter that it’s also the cheapest. That it’s also the lightest and least powerful Lamborghini money can buy just means that last gallon should go a little further, too.