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2015 Lamborghini Huracan LP 610-4 Review

For seven years, Lamborghini sold the Gallardo alongside the Audi R8. And despite sharing more with the Audi than most Italians would like to admit, the Gallardo was a true Lamborghini. Meanwhile the Audi R8 was every bit the stoic German. How did the Gallardo do it? Emotional distance. As cliche as it sounds, the Lamborghini felt more temperamental, although not always in a good way. That fiery disposition made it salacious at mere idle and a baying brute at the limit. The Gallardo's successor, the Huracan, incredibly is even closer to the R8 under the skin, but is galaxies apart from the Audi in terms of impression and intent. The R8 already has a reputation as an everyday supercar, faster than a speeding bullet, able to carry small groceries in a single trunk. With the Huracan, we wanted to find out if it offers the same benefits without dampening that scalding Italian attitude. That difference from old to new starts with subtlety: the Huracan's "dynamic wedge" shape doesn't boast; there isn't a single clingy component demanding your attention. The package fits together so well that you can't just look at one thing, you have to look at everything. There are details atop details, from the Y-shaped LED daytime lamps to the side glass that tucks into the body like an alien canopy. The designers worked to build in enough downforce that the Huracan wouldn't need active or moving aerodynamic devices. So whereas the Gallardo Superleggera looked good with a wing, putting such spoilage on a non-competition Huracan should incur one of those NHTSA-sized, $14,000-a-day fines. There are some hitches to just getting in and driving. There's no reflexive ease to the start and transmission procedures. We always need to remind ourselves of the steps to the dance and "Oh, that's right, pull this for Reverse." Lamborghini changed the shape of the Audi buttons lining the waterfall console, but it looks too close to the A4. The Italians also carried over that funky two-step process of pushing a button and turning a knob to control fan speed. The Huracan ditches Audi's stalks on the steering column by placing buttons on the wheel. The result is fiddly, but okay. It's a fine office, though. The cabin trim feels like eight different shades of Black Hole, and you sit so close to the ground that Lamborghini should offer a bucket-and-pulley system on the options list. The seats are firm and supportive where they need to be, and comfortable everywhere.

Lamborghini Urus prototype spied lapping the Nurburgring

The Lamborghini Urus is coming on December 4, just days after the end of the 2017 Los Angeles Auto Show. The Italian automaker's first SUV has been in development for years, but things are finally coming to a climax. Crossovers are hot, so we wouldn't be surprised at all if the Urus becomes Lamborghini's best-selling model. As such it needs to look, sound and drive like a vehicle worth of the charging bull badge. Thanks to YouTube channel Stateside Super Cars, we have some new video of the new Lambo lapping the Nurburgring. The Urus will be powered by a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 making 650 horsepower. This is likely to be a hopped-up version of Audi's 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8. In fact, you can see a new Audi A8 with that engine lapping the 'Ring just behind the Urus prototype. The video gives us a small taste of the exhaust note, giving a deep low burble with a few cracks and pops on lift-off. The 'ute is still covered with a wrap, but you can make out the basic appearance. It doesn't look too far off the concept we saw a few years ago, with an aggressive roofline and a distinctly Lamborghini front fascia. Look for full details in just over a month. Related Video:

Lamborghini Huracan Performante's active aero is the secret to its speed

The most revolutionary real technology at this year's Geneva Motor Show didn't look like it on the show stand. If you squint at the Lamborghini Huracan Performante, it merely looks like a Huracan with a big wing. Up close, you can see the fractal texture of the forged-composite aerodynamic add-ons, but that still doesn't tell you why this car is so special. Lamborghini calls it Aerodinamica Lamborghini Attiva (ALA), or active aerodynamics. This is one of the biggest keys to the Performante's claimed production-car record lap time at the Nurburgring Nordschleife of 6 minutes, 52.01 seconds. The Huracan Performante's number is not without controversy, but I personally care very little about the obsessive phallic-measuring contests that are 'Ring lap times. What's fascinating about the Performante is that, if the lap time is even close to legitimate, it shows that ALA is a major step forward in automotive performance. More than just lap times, the Huracan Performante is an example of why Lamborghini remains special in a world of democratized performance. We sat down to discuss this with Lamborghini's Research and Development Director, Maurizio Reggiani. And one last note on the lap time: Reggiani says with the same temperature and exclusive access to a dry track, "that in this average of speed we can repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat." In previous conversations, Reggiani said that the key difference in performance would come not from horsepower, but weight reduction. For Lamborghini, that means plenty of carbon fiber. But the newest Huracan is not a Superleggera, the old title for the hardcore variant. "Superleggera is too much an objective, a description. Performante is really the DNA of the car. In Italian, Performante means really the best performance," he said. Reggiani continues, "Nothing happened by chance. It's really a building-block approach where you say this can give this contribution, this can give that. Where can you improve something and what is needed to improve something?" That brought them to the active aerodynamics solution, which channels air to stall the front or rear aero elements of the car to change the downforce and drag. Reggiani says, "This can be achieved only with a system that is really light, [has] fast responsiveness. Based on this ...