Friday, June 6, 2014

Cars : Lamborghini Huracan

Cars : Lamborghini Huracan

Some people may be disappointed to hear this, but you can throw away many of your preconceptions about Lamborghini. And when I say preconceptions, I mostly mean prejudices.

Don’t get me wrong. The brand’s new car, the Huracan, starts at $237,000, fits only two passengers and has a top speed that far exceeds any legal street limit. If all that seems nuts to you, I suppose I won’t disagree.

Even those with a love of exotic sports cars have sometimes looked askance at Sant’Agata Bolognese, Italy-based Lamborghini. Part of that, historically, was the very real problem of build quality and reliability. Keeping the cars running could be an expensive chore. Models such as the 1980s-era Countach were legendary for an almost deviant sense of impracticality -- you might have to sit on the sill of the driver’s seat, scissor door raised, to see behind you and back up (semi) safely.

There was also a somewhat pejorative perception of owners, that perhaps many of the cars were bought in places like south Florida, in cash, by young, bare-chested men without obvious professions.

Well, forget all that. The brand has been owned by Wolfsburg, Germany-based Volkswagen AG (VOW) since 1998, and the infusion of shared technology, stability and R&D funding has placed the often tumultuous brand on far firmer ground.

Which brings us to the Huracan LP 610-4, ostensibly named after a Spanish fighting bull from the late 1800s. The mid-engine coupe will be the new volume model worldwide. It’s the successor to the hugely successful Gallardo, which sold more than 14,000 cars over its 10-year life span, many of them convertibles, special editions or lightweight variants.

No wonder the Huracan is a hugely important foundation for Lamborghini. Screw it up at the beginning and the company would suffer the consequences for years.

I test-drove the Huracan on all types of roads and on the racetrack, and can firmly say Lamborghini did not screw this one up. As a volume model, it’s by far the best blend of Italian flourish and sure-footed engineering ever released from Sant’Agata Bolognese.

As one would expect, the Huracan is all-wheel drive, with a V-10 engine mounted in the center of the car. Also expected, that 5.2-liter motor creates prodigious power: 610 horsepower and 412 pound-feet of torque.

At full tilt, the coupe makes hysterical, loud noises; is soil-your-pantaloni fast; and comes in vivid colors like bombastic orange and does-not-occur-in-nature green. All of which places it firmly in the world of Lamborghini, where drivers never feel older than 18 and there is no such thing as a boring commute.


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Sources : Lamborghini Huracan Photo | Lamborghini Huracan Article

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