It’s the Lamborghini Huracan’s turn to present the ultimate supercar – and what a performance! Simon de Burton applauds...
Among the many things that superyachts and supercars have in common is that their owners are seldom satisfied – once they’ve got “the ultimate” they always seem to want something just that bit better. And they usually end up getting it. Such is the case with the Lamborghini Huracan launched in 2014 and tasked with replacing the remarkably successful Gallardo, the first “new generation” Lambo introduced following VW Audi’s takeover of the marque in 1998.
Having lived with a Huracan LP 610-4 for a few days (the 610 refers to the power output of the V10 engine, the 4 to the fact that it features all-wheel-drive) it seems difficult to imagine that anything could better fulfil the criteria required of a supercar. Fast? It has a top speed of around 200mph. Quick off the mark? Standstill to 60mph in 3.3 seconds isn’t hanging about. Handling? Not on rails or like a go-kart – but like a go-kart on rails, I’d say.
It is, of course, absurdly impractical as a day-to-day car, being enormously wide and difficult to reverse thanks to dreadful rear visibility (despite a camera set-up). There’s precious little luggage capacity. And the car’s looks are so aggressive that one of the residents of my sleepy Devon village asked me to stop driving it because she thought it was “scary”.
But on an open, sweeping, preferably traffic-free road, the Huracan quickly reminds you that there’s still tremendous pleasure to be had from the simple joy of driving - and, unlike Lambos of old, you don’t even need to worry about it breaking down thanks to its virtually bullet-proof Audi engineering.
So could anyone who doesn’t care about luggage capacity and looking behind them really ask any more of a Huracan? Well, if they do want more they can have it – because the recently released Performante version is even quicker and (as the name suggests) better performing. It costs £215,000 instead of £205,000 but it recently set a new lap record at Germany’s notorious Nürburgring Nordschleife of six minutes, 52.1 seconds.
So this really is the ultimate Huracan that money can buy – until, that is, the breeze blows in an even better one...
Visit lamborghini.com