Lamborghini Huracán Evo RWD
Final verdict given
WHY WE RAN IT
Entry-level Lamborghini is surprisingly good to drive, but you’d still be mad to use one every day – wouldn’t you?
Our time with the Huracán is over. I’ll explain exactly how this makes me feel shortly, but first I want to address the notion of ‘supercar saturation’ creating some degree of ‘supercar apathy’ among enthusiasts.
This phenomenon stems not only from the modern-day flood of social media images that glorify supercars as nothing more than status symbols, but also the stream of ultra-exclusive creations everyone is today building. Simply, we can’t escape supercars at present, especially on our screens, and some people feel an appreciable portion of the wow-factor is fading because of this – myself tentatively included. And without wanting to sound too dramatic, that sickens me.
Quite apart from the appalling irony involved, it meant that living with a supercar for four months was a dangerous game. It sounds ridiculous, but day after day with a Huracán Evo RWD (at £164,400 before any options, the entry-level derivative) could cultivate apathy.
Such an eventuality would be genuinely upsetting. For around 29 of my 31 years, I’ve been riveted by cars like the Lambo, just like the slack-jawed Piedmontese locals who saw Countach prototypes fly by. As someone who couldn’t afford one in real life, I want to daydream freely about letting umpteen litres of naturally aspirated V10 rip down my favourite roads, and revel in the fantasy that supercars really do have more in common with UFOS than ordinary cars. I don’t want to be denied all this and coaxed into apathy, either by overfamiliarity or by poseurs who contort themselves to squeeze both Gucci loafer and Rolex Daytona into an image of some poor modified Aventador’s steering wheel.
It is therefore with profound relief that I can report that running this car – and running it hard, with on-street parking, mundane trips to shops, continual interaction with an interested and almost universally positive public, in all weathers and with all those headline ascents to the redline – has been indescribably fun. And almost constant fun, although I’d be lying if I said it isn’t nice to be free of the oppressive attention – and frankly expectation – Lambos draw.
Was it safe? Yes. Nobody apart from the children who decorated the body with sweets laid a finger on the Huracán. I would still have preferred to garage it, but that is different from saying one would have to garage it. Even long stints of lockdown inactivity (before it was marooned, this car was never intended for longterm test-car duties) presented no issues. Not even the battery went flat.
So let’s get gripes out of the way. The new sports seats are lower and more supportive than any other seat offered in the Huracán to date, but they’re also capricious. How they can remain comfortable for 200 miles on one day but immediately leave you squirming the next, I can’t fathom.
Lamborghini’s decision to keep the tiny indicator and wiper controls on the steering wheel but do away with any physical volume control is also irritating, even if familiarity helps.
More fundamentally, the roof line is so low that you need to stop well in advance of traffic lights to see them.
Were this car right-hand drive, this next one wouldn’t be a problem, but the windscreen wiper doesn’t get anywhere near the driver’s side A-pillar, so you’re left with a foot-wide blindspot when it rains. Not ideal.
Then, even on its charmingly normal 19in wheels, cabin din is substantial on distance drives – although what did you expect? In Strada, the damping is at least impressively supple and f luid.
Finally, the boot is so small that it becomes an issue, even in a supercar.
And that’s it. The Huracán is fun almost all of the time because it’s largely vice-free. Easy to park, easy to drive and easy to get out of, it shatters the myth that modern supercars aren’t usable – and if you disagree, stop comparing them to an E-class.
In RWD form, the Huracán also gives the driver much more to get stuck into than the AWD, which relies too heavily on four-wheel steering and torque vectoring. It’s therefore not only the most usable Lamborghini, Urus SUV aside, but also the sweetest to drive, and its price therefore seems reasonable.
As for ‘supercar apathy’? So far as I can tell, you become resistant to it the moment you slump down into something as expressive as this Huracán RWD. And this, remember, is a relatively junior supercar. Even po-faced cynics would be unable to stifle smiles or laughter when the thing gets going. Anything that sets you this low, changes direction so mesmerisingly keenly and f loods your body with endorphins at every pin-sharp response to the throttle is unlikely to engender indifference.
And that’s before we even get to the V10 sound, which is just as satisfying when you’re pottering around as it is when the noise has coalesced into a clenched fist at 8000rpm, when it’s so concentrated you can actually detect it reacting with your surroundings.
Apathy? Give me a break. Living with this uncomplicated but soulful machine has given me so many moments that I will never forget.
❝ The Huracán can be simple fun almost all of the time, because it’s largely vice-free ❞