The revised version of the Lamborghini Huracan bears the nickname "Evo" - and thus appears almost too modest. Externally hardly changed, the Italian supercar offers an electronic equipment that can turn a good one into a very good driver.
Maurizio Reggiani gets to the point quickly. "You can not go down," says the development board of Lamborghini, and he means that in the world of supercars must never be satisfied with the achievements. On the contrary: "You have to go every time" - more and more, faster and faster, the cars have to become more and more fascinating, and that is obviously true even if there is no new model, just a facelift called.
When Lamborghini Huracan, the smallest model in the program, which plays with 5,2 liter large V10 engine but already in the first league, the people in charge have worked on what you could call the soul of a sports car. Not the engine here is the speech, in the new Huracan Evo roars, roars and screams now the 640 PS strong unit from the former top model of the series, the Huracan Performante. What makes the Evo stand out more from the 2014 introduced original Huracan, is the completely new chassis tuning, peppered with electronic finesse.
As traditional as Lamborghini likes to be, which finds particular expression in clinging to high-revving engines that do not require a turbocharger (except in the SUV model Urus), so much the engineers are still dealing with what modernity gives.
So the all-wheel drive car three new technologies were packed under the iconic fighter jet design: a rear-axle steering, a torque vectoring system and a central control unit, whose name is worth learning Italian: Lamborghini Dinamica Veicolo Integrata, or something more dispassionate: LDVI.
Before the explanation comes the driving test, the Lamborghini Huracan Evo stands ready on the formula 1 course of Bahrain. Three long straights characterize this course as well as one, two narrow to very tight corners and an interesting asphalt track inside the course, which you can drive quite fast - but again not as fast as the engine of the Huracan Evo provides.
325 km / h are given as top speed, the reached the Evo in Bahrain, but at the end of the home straight the speedometer shows 270 km / h, and the standard ceramic brake discs must do their best to give the car a safe turn to allow the following right turn. What follows are a short straight and then a left-right-left combination before the next hairpin, and now great attention is required to with the rapidly accelerating ten-cylinder (600 Newtonmeter torque, 2,9 seconds from 0 to 100 km / h ) do not overshoot at one point or another.
Once you get used to these peculiarities of the car and the circuit, you can pay attention to the increase in agility that the rear axle steering gives the car. Although the rear wheels adjust very little, namely with a maximum steering angle of one degree), but that is enough to make the wheelbase virtually lower and thus make the car handy. This happens at the relatively low speeds that hairpins and tight bends sometimes require. If you are traveling fast, for example, on the highway, the rear wheels do not rotate in opposite directions to the front wheels, but parallel - this makes the wheelbase virtually longer, which increases the stability, such as when changing lanes.
The Italians did not invent this technique, nor did it use it exclusively, but it's helpful, and if you can accommodate the extra components in the extremely close-cut Lamborghini design, why not? The soul of the whole, however, is the LDVI calculator. Chief Development Officer Reggiani says the control center, which brings together all the threads of the vehicle dynamics control, puts the car in a position to act with foresight. Because 50 evaluated all the data every second, it soon knew what the driver wanted in the next corner.
The sensitivity of the newly programmed electronics can be tested especially in the driving mode, in which the driver and the car feel better than in the somewhat too relaxed setting Strada (road) or in the razor-sharp Corsa (race). The ESP is set in sports mode so that the car allows noticeable drifts, but not necessarily turn into a spin. Again, this is not a completely new technology, but so soft, so naturally, no other car is regulated in these cases - the mid-engine principle (engine behind the seats, but in front of the rear axle) and the resulting weight distribution (43 percent front, 57 percent rear) create the conditions for the harmonic use of electronics, but in the end the technology does not matter: the person on the Lamborghini control will automatically consider himself a very good driver when drifting out of hairpin bends.
And Corsa? Shows that you do not own a supercar to drive from A to B, to the office, for example. If you can spend 219.000 Euro on a Huracan Evo, you should visit the circuit regularly by car and book your driving time or even better the training time. Only then do you appreciate the startless gear changes of the seven-speed dual-clutch transmission as well as the aggressive revving of the engine. And only in the workshop atmosphere of a wide racetrack is it safely possible to engage in fast driving with the technique of torque vectoring: While the electronic four-wheel drive can shift the torque continuously and as needed between the front and rear axle, leaves the torque vectoring electronics also variable power allocation between left and right wheel of each axle too. The end effect is a further increase in directional stability even at faster speeds, the generally unwanted understeer is hardly an issue for the Huracan Evo.
All in all, it is a pleasure to drive the new expansion stage of the Huracan. Its big naturally aspirated engine is already one of the last of its kind, as V10 anyway, and if another completely new model comes out in another four to five years, then you will certainly get to do it with a plug-in hybrid variant. The extra electric motor will then bring the pressure from below, which in turbocharged engines produce turbochargers - and for that, the typical Lamborghini feel of smooth, spontaneous, and non-stop spin will change, perhaps it will even disappear.
In this respect, the purchase of a Lamborghini Huracan Evo (possible from March) not only provides plenty of moments of happiness, but could also prove to be a wise investment in a future classic, if you have the necessary budget.
Stefan Anker / SP-X
Specifications - Lamborghini Huracan Evo
Two-door supercar, length: 4,52 meter, width: 1,93 meter (with outside mirrors: 2,24 meter), height: 1,17 meter, wheelbase: 2,62 meter, trunk volume: 100 liter.
5,2 liter petrol engine without turbocharger, all-wheel drive, seven-speed dual clutch transmission, 470 kW / 640 PS, maximum torque: 600 Nm at 1.800 - 6.500 rpm, 0-100 km / h: 2,9 s, Vmax: 325 km / h, average consumption / CO2 emissions / efficiency class: not yet homologated, emissions standard: Euro 6 level 3, price from: 219.000 euros.
Short description - Lamborghini Huracan Evo:
Why: because it is the perfect blend of classic engine technology and modern chassis electronics
Why not: because he is a drama queen, loud and very noticeable in design
What else: Ferrari 488, Porsche 911 GT3 RS, McLaren 600LT