lambo review

Lamborghini Huracan Performante: Review
Lamborghini Huracan Performante: Review
FEBRUARY 20, 2018 ~ TOMS CHIT CHAT
I’m back to my speciality again this week.

I think it’s time to review a car which we all dream of, yet, can’t possibly afford; the supercar. The new Lamborghini in fact, which is actually very new indeed, as it was only released earlier this year. It is the newest sibling to the older, Lamborghini Huracan, which when it was first released, was a car I didn’t like very much. I know that being a petrol-head and saying you hate a car, specifically a supercar is the same as Sir David Attenborough saying “I HATE THE ENVIRONMENT!” It doesn’t sound right at all. Hear me out on this, I have always admired Lamborghini’s, they are the kind of car that every nine-year-old boy dreams of, and wants the bedroom poster up on his wall. This was the exact case with the Lamborghini Aventador, it’s a few years old now (2012/13), but it is still, and I think always will be for me, the car I have always wanted. And the car which is the most jaw-dropping to look at, which is why as a nine-year-old boy, I had the bedroom wall poster of the Lambo Aventador.

Image result for Lamborghini Aventador
Lamborghini Aventador Pic: Lamborghini
There was just always something about this car that looked angry, and that if you tried to stroke it, you always got the feeling that it would bite your arm off. And that’s what Lamborghini’s should always be, an experience that makes you finish with your trousers not being the original colour they were when you started.

If I were to be a Lamborghini designer, I would simply do as they do, and not give a toss as to what goes where. Since I’ve been in a few Lamborghini’s before, you do get the sense that the ludicrous Italians that design these simply say; “ah yes, give the wheels ah fire blades, and ah, lasers for windscreen wipers, ah! Molto Bene!” That’s how all Lamborghini’s should be designed.

This was not the case, however, for the Huracan. I was never really sure what it was about that car, but, after Lamborghini made the Aventador it seemed like the sky was the limit. When the Huracan rolled off the production line, there was just something missing that I couldn’t really put my finger on. Compared to the Aventador, the Huracan didn’t have the same drop-jaw look that the Aventador owned. You wouldn’t imagine the Huracan being the amazingly framed bedroom wall poster that it’s big brother got.
The Huracan on the streets of London
I got to go in this very car in fact, which is why the caption doesn’t have any photo credits because I took this picture myself on my iPhone, after my scary stint around London’s streets.

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Lamborghini Huracan Performante Pic: Car and Driver
A standard Lamborghini Huracan will cost £155,000, and the all-new Performante is a whopping £55,000 more expensive, at £208,000. So, what do you get for your money? Well, it seems that on paper, not much.

Compared to the standard car, the Performante has been given 29 more horsepower, which takes it from 602 to 631BHP. It’s also got 30 more torques and, all of this means then, is that both cars have the same top speed of 202MPH. It’s also only had its 0-60 speed taken down by two-ninths of a second, 3.1 seconds has been shaved down to 2.9- which isn’t really much difference, at all. So, what is all the extra £55,000 fuss all about?

It has been fitted with a 5.2 litre V10, with a brand spanking new exhaust. You very nearly got this, in the standard car. The difference is though, that when you plant your foot down in a straight line, it’s exactly like having 1000 grizzly bears in the back, along with, Krakatoa, a nuclear bomb, a squadron of hawks, a pack of lions, a war and a dog. The engine noise is just explosive.

The next thing is just how fabulous this car looks… It’s soo much more dramatic than the standard car, it feels like the “please take a photo of me” look, is screaming from the bonnet because the jaw-dropping look is 100% back with this Lambo. The materials used to make this car are also typically Italian. For example, the epic rear wing has been made from carbon fibre bonded in a resin. This look has been repeated on several instruments inside the car, and all of this makes it very light- actually 40kg lighter than the standard Huracan.

Italian designers of the Performante have been brilliantly clever because, they have fitted the car with a system called ALA, which is a boffin aerodynamic system which moves a set of flaps in the front spoiler, flows air through the underside of the car, and controls air ducts in front of the rear wing, this controls the airflow over the back of the car. Yes, you are right, ALA does stand for something, but it’s Italian and I can’t be bothered to type it.

In a straight line, the Huracan Performante will leave a Ferrari 458 Speciale for dead, it will absolutely cream it, and still be wanting more by the time it’s finished it’s drag sprint. The aero system doesn’t stop there either, it’s clever. It gives you the confidence, to corner at absolute tremendous speeds and gives you the confidence that you’ll come out relatively okay on the other side. It also dials up the grip through corners by, distributing power to each specific wheel as and when it requires it. It’s like Usain Bolt. I’ve fallen head over heels in love with it. It’s a masterpiece. A genuine new chapter, in the history of motoring. It’s just brilliant.

What surprised me, most the test drivers, and will probably surprise you is that this car went around the Nürburgring five seconds quicker than any of the multi-million-pound hypercars. It went around in six minutes and 52 seconds. A Porsche 918 did the same lap in six minutes 57 seconds. This is a bloody quick machine.

The Huracan Performante isn’t just a track-bred car either, yes it gives you one hell of a driving experience, but it also comes as standard with Apple connectivity and air conditioning, it really is just as much an everyday car as is is track record breaker.

I started this test with some faults, and I just want to end it with some too, the only huge pain with this car, is that it bongs every time you do so much as move when you’re driving, as it’s stupid system thinks that the driver could have fallen asleep at the wheel. Cars these days bong when you open the door, bong when you sit down, bong when you don’t put your seatbelt on, bong if you don’t release the handbrake, bong if you don’t depress the clutch before you set off, bong if your shopping is placed on the passenger seat, bong if your lights are off, or bong if a postbox is approaching five miles away from your location. This car wins the bonging contest hands down, I’ve never sat in a car which bongs as much as this did. It was a bloody nightmare. It will tell you it’s TSU is malfunctioning- now I have no idea what its TSU is, and I’m sure that the person who buys one, won’t have a clue either. Furthermore, it may say that it’s MMI has been disabled. Let me tell you, that for acronyms, this is ten times worse than the British Army.

Every car has faults and problems. As do humans. That’s what makes them special, that’s what gives a car a proper meaning and a human-like beating heart. That’s the difference between, a good car and a great one.

I would actually say, that the Huracan Performante is currently, my favourite car of the moment.

Thomas