Lamborghini Urus
A big seller it may be, but this super-suv is a confused machine
NUMBERS RARELY LIE IN THEIR impartial delivery of hard data, and despite the Urus being so far removed from what you and I think a driver’s car should be, last year 5021 people considered it the car for them. Some 1547 have bought one during the first quarter of 2022 already.
At its launch in 2018 the Urus was one of those cars that despite everything about it – from the way it looked, to the weight and size of it and what it stood for – still left you impressed by how capable a beast it was. Its 641bhp and 627lb ft was, as you’d expect, more than ample to overcome its 2200kg kerb weight, and it still is today as it shatters your senses when you wind its twin-turbocharged V8 up and let it go. There’s a relentlessness to its power delivery, so much so that on the road your wits throw in the towel before the V8 has delivered all it has to give. It stops and steers okay, too, for one so big.
However, what’s been striking in the four short years the Urus has been keeping matt vinyl wrap specialists in business is how it has very quickly felt like a previous generation car when compared with Porsche’s Cayenne Coupe Turbo GT, with which it shares some common underpinnings, and Aston Martin’s DBX. Even BMW’S latest X5 M makes the Lamborghini feel a little loose, and not in a third-gear, open-corner tyre-destroying way.
Spend time in a Urus on a long journey and you quickly become aware that a great deal of refinement and comfort has been ignored to maximise its astonishing speed, which makes it tiresome, its constant straining at the leash a distraction rather than a welcome accompaniment. Both the Huracán and Aventador in non-sto or SV trim feel more relaxed on long rides. The Urus feels confused: neither a competent long-distance companion nor a bundle of fun on more challenging roads.
But the numbers don’t lie and the Urus continues to outsell any other Lamborghini in the company’s history. A big mid-life facelift this summer will bring some much needed updates along with a more powerful variant to match Aston’s impressive DBX707 and Ferrari’s forthcoming Purosangue, but until then it remains a car that’s hard to admire and even harder to understand the appeal of.
Date acquired December 2021 Total mileage 6482 Mileage this month 602 Costs this month £0 mpg this month 17.2