Lambo off the leash
Our Huracan is so good at the day-today stu , we had to check it’s not at the expense of its day job.
Lamborghini Huracan Evo Month 4
The story so far
The Huracan’s proven adept at daily life. Time for a longer road trip!
★ Long-legged touring, big tank, ease of use
- Mucky aero restricts vision in bad weather
Logbook:
Price £165,656 (£216,806 as tested) Performance 5204cc V10, 631bhp, 2.9sec 0-62mph, 202mph E ciency 20.6mpg (o cial), 19.7mpg (tested) 332g/ km CO2 Energy cost 41.0p per mile Miles this month 858 Total miles 5564
Living with a supercar as your sole means of transport does funny things to your motoring habits. I’ve thought nothing of doing shopping trips and school runs in our Huracan. When train strikes derailed an important work function in London, I simply drove from Peterborough to The Shard. It’s fitted into everyday life with insouciant ease and I love this useability. If the supercar was changed forever by 1989’s Honda NSX, that same practicality shines bright in our £217k Lambo.
But it’d be remiss not to stretch the Huracan’s legs during our long-term test. So I plotted a road trip where I’d jettison the diary. I blanked out a day where I’d drive to some of Britain’s most scenic roads, just for the hell of it – to double-check the Huracan hasn’t been sanitised too much.
I chose the Peak District, slap bang in the middle of the country, an area I’d not explored since my childhood. At only 100 miles from my house, I’d spend most of the day driving around the national park, rather than schlepping up and down motorways to get there and back.
Brimming the Evo’s expansive 83-litre tank with super unleaded can make you wince (our priciest refuel to date cost £143…) but the flipside is an indicated range that stretches past 400 miles. That’s not far off diesel range – in a Lamborghini! Storage space is poor, with a backpack, tripod and coat filling the front boot, and there’s precious little room for oddments in the cabin. Cupholders are for wimps, right? There’s no wireless connection for your smartphone, either, so it’s old-school cables ahoy. You have to learn multi-digit swipes to get the best from the quirky touchscreen, and in any case the hands-free phone connection struggles with meaningful conversation on the move.
But park the sensible stuff to one side. As the miles roll past on the A1, buildings turn from the honeyed limestone of the East Midlands to the slate grey of more northern climes. I veer off at Sherwood Forest and head west, brushing the southern suburbs of Sheeld and soon the landscape changes again, gentle hills swelling beyond dry stone walls with higher peaks behind. The Huracan is a cinch to thread along cross-country roads, those
huge aluminium paddleshifters keeping the V10 on the boil (a necessary pastime since the ECU shifts to sixth quickly, even at urban speeds). I spend the rest of the day with the transmission locked in manual, tip-tapping up and down the seven-speed twin-clutch ’box with precision.
The V10 is the beating heart of this car. That dramatic Lambo profile is dictated by the 5.2-litre lump slung amidships and the engine is proudly on show under the £4050 transparent lid like a museum exhibit. Start-up is loud, to my neighbours’ chagrin, but it’s not too intrusive on the motorway, at least in Strada mode. Toggle through Sport to Corsa and you can hear the exhaust baes open wide and all hell breaks loose when you introduce pedal to carpet, all four wheels keying into the tarmac to slingshot the Huracan up the road. Traction is impeccable, making brutal acceleration so accessible.
After a few exploratory bursts of high-rev histrionics near Chesterfield in full pimp mode, I quickly flick back to more modest Strada. Therein lies society’s changing attitudes to supercars and conspicuous consumption; especially in the Peak District’s haven of peace and quiet, where the loudest sound is walkers declagging their boots after a hike.
I criss-cross the national park in a day spent exploring the remote moorlands, from Mam Tor and Derbyshire’s famous caves to Perrydale, the Edale Valley and the staggering Winnats Pass, a gorge punched through jagging rocks as eye-catching as anything Wales or Scotland can offer. Inevitably, for a British spring, storm clouds gather after lunch and I experience a late dump of snow as the afternoon wears on. A reminder that I’m high up here, skirting around Kinder Scout, a peak we struggle to see in our door mirrors which muck-up so badly I need to clean them hourly.
Our Lamborghini rides on regular Pirelli P Zero rubber, which bites through the slush and gathering snow with grippy precision; I’m thankful we don’t have the Tecnica’s track tyres. Our retina-searing Giallo Belenus yellow paintwork looks impossibly grubby, wearing a smear of road grime which – I’ll be honest – I’ve kept on most of the winter. It underlines that this is a supercar that’s not to be kept boxed-up and factory-fresh, but used every day.
The Huracan Evo is brilliant up here in the Peaks, away from the worries of everyday trips: fast, surefooted and great fun. It really is one of the best all-seasons supercars. @TimPollardCars
Start-up is loud, to my neighbours’ chagrin, but it’s not too intrusive on the motorway