Lambo to share
SAM WALLACE DRIVES A LAMBORGHINI YOU CAN SHARE
The Urus is Lamborghini’s first foray into the SUV market and it has created something so absurd that it makes sense.
At first glance it’s more ostentatious than a Real Housewives of Auckland cocktail party. But unlike the Real Housewives, it gets better looking the more time you spend with it. Cameras don’t do it justice. It’s not until you’re standing next to it do you realise it’s squatting on ginormous 23in rims.
So what is a Urus? Lamborghini says the name comes from the ancestor of modern domestic cattle. That makes sense because the Urus is a hard-working beast and you can literally fill the boot with a family of suitcases and put three kids across the back seat.
Of course most SUVs can achieve this feat. But what makes the Urus great is everything else it does, like accelerate, as if someone has poked it with a red hot branding iron.
Before Lamborghini Auckland would allow us to cut loose in its SUV with the same power as a V8 Supercar, we had to sign an insurance form. Should we be unlucky enough to have an
incident, we had to pay the first $21,000.
The obvious test was acceleration 0-100. But the world of health and safety complicates car reviews. A person wearing a hivis jacket and holding a clip board wouldn’t permit us to do this test on a public road because apparently accelerating to the speed limit faster that Marty McFly is dangerous.
So we had to go to a track. But in the document we had just signed with Lamborghini, fine print stipulated there was no insurance if we ventured on to a race track. Instead we went to Meremere drag strip.
That added more implications, and this time we took notice. Because if we didn’t, we could die and leave a giant bill for NZME for a stacked Lamborghini.
And by listening, we learned that drag strips spray the track with a plastic polymer to give drag cars traction. And, if it’s been raining, the water sits on the coating and turns it into a quarter-mile iceskating rink.
So there we were in a $340,000-plus SUV on the Meremere ice skating rink with no insurance and an hour to film our review. So we selected Corsa (or track mode) that lit up a bottomclenching traction control “off” light on my dash and we buried the boot.
Despite the strip being slippery, the 2200kg SUV was launched. On our first pass we did 3.94s. But it’s not the number that’s staggering, it’s the way this Lamborghini moves the weight that is so ungodly. It feels like the wheels aren’t touching the road — like you have gone back to the future.
Lamborghini has broken traditions with the 4-litre twinturbo V8 petrol engine. It barks as it unleashes 477kW while tearing at the drag strip with 850Nm, snarling its way through the
8-speed gearbox. And this pure acceleration is packaged up into something you can live with.
The Urus does everything we need a car to do and more. And that includes wearing my slicklooking shades, winding down the driver’s window and popping my
15-week-old son anchored in the back seat to drive along Ponsonby Rd, listening to the Wiggles sing Hot Potato through 21 Bang & Olufsen speakers. It felt and sounded magnificent.
So why buy a Lamborghini SUV? Because it has all the excitement of a Lamborghini. It’s even capable off-road. Not that any of them will ever go off road. And because, despite being the first turbocharged Lambo, it holds onto the fibre of its fabric. You still feel its heritage and it makes you feel special.
At the same time, you can drop your kids at private school. It’s a Lamborghini you can share.