The unmatched charm and seduction of a low-slung, road-hugging, two-door sports car with a sexy silhouette making raucous noise and grabbing the attention of the opposite gender and making it to countless dorm room posters and now wallpapers is unparalleled to anything else. Those names from the Lamborghini stable were the Countach, Murcielago, Aventador and Huracan and despite selling in a minuscule % of total global cars, the brand has the luxury pull bigger than, if not at the same level of a Louis Vuitton or a Patek Phillipe. Imagine if you are the CEO of that company, you would be living an envious, snobbish life with no pressure for sales volume, driving a dream to work every day. Stephan Winkelmann is one such man, the current Chairman and CEO of Automobili Lamborghini, but the status quo was challenged, and the URUS was born, which totally changed the attitude of Lamborghini and also set a precedent for other car manufacturers of its ilk to follow. A Luxury performance SUV with four seats and ground clearance to drive off a paddy field was a confusing proposition to begin with. I can also resonate with the Ex Ferrari CEO who publicly claimed that they would never make an SUV; that Ferrari Purosangue is now a reality is another story, that they don’t want it to be called a SUV is also a different story but our story is the URUS Performante.
Chapter 1 - The Name
Let’s start from the name of the book itself – URUS, which actually was a Latin name given by Julius Caesar to a large extinct long-horned European wild bull at the period of the Roman invasion, also called Aurochs. “Performante” is the Italian word for performance, and it is ironic that we were invited to Rome, the epicenter of that roman invasion, to tame this wild bull and measure its true performance.
Chapter 2 - The beginning
It was in 2018 that world’s 1st Super SUV, URUS, was unveiled, and there was quite a build-up to this; teasers and leaks did a great job in keeping the conversations and inquisitiveness on. It was nicknamed the ‘Super SUV’ in 2018 and the first proper all wheel drive SUV in the modern age. Urus was the game changer for Lamborghini and blurred the lines between performance sports cars and luxury SUVs. More than 60% of their annual revenues, and 84% of all the buyers of Urus are 1st-time buyers. After reigning the charts for 5 years the URUS S and now Performante is all the rage to hit the fast luxury lane. The real birth of Lamborghini from an agriculture tractor company to a performance car company was because Ferruccio Lamborghini wanted to make the perfect car after a well known spat with Enzo Ferrari. Well, Urus is that perfect car and the “Performante ‘’ is a layer of perfection added on top of it.
Chapter 5 - Rally Mode tested
All hell broke loose when we were thrown with the Performante on the dirt track, a miniature version of Pikes Peak. Like someone has given you Swarovski studded shoes to take a walk on a dirty beachside. It was hilariously fun, and even if you are in the most somber mood, this driving experience on the dirt track with the rally mode on will bring a wide grin and unbelievable laughter pangs. The ESC was on all the time, and the “Performante” was dancing, drifting on the track. The moment you felt you were oversteering or understeering, to a large extent, the system would kick in and put you back on the course. A simple rule book of entering slowly on the corner of the Apex and accelerating on 1st or 2nd gear while leaving will swing the tail to your joy. For a change, I enjoyed it more on the dirt track than on the Vallelunga circuit near Rome, but the handling was precise and on point almost every time. The engine now exhales through an even raspier exhaust note, and the throttle mapping has been chiseled in all the drive modes.
The air suspension has been swapped out for stiffer steel springs combined with adaptive dampers, which lose the ability to vary ride height but, on the contrary, sharpen the handling to a great extent. That drops the ride height by 20mm. The new carbon bumpers ensure that the Performante is 25mm longer than the original Urus too. The “Performante” also gets a new Torsen center differential, which has the ability to send more torque to the rear axle. The eight-speed automatic gearbox has also been tweaked to reduce shift times. Steering feedback feels crisper than in the regular Urus, and the Performante is keener to turn in, fighting understeer with rear-biased torque delivery.
In the Rally mode, it is also frightful to think of an INR 4+ Crore Car with the sound of stones flung against the carbon-fiber wheel-arch and sill protectors. Rally mode also requires a substantial throttle input to initiate a slide. I had to keep the pedal fixated so the active systems could regulate the yaw angle – which is the car’s rotation about the z-axis. I also interviewed Stephan Wilkenmann, Chairman & CEO of Automobile Lamborghini, which you can read here. I popped him the question, does he think that the Urus Performante owners, after shelling over a Quarter million dollars, will take it on the dirt track? His reply was prompt – No, not many would – but they will always like the idea that they can.
Chapter 3 -
It’s the heart of the Urus with the soul of a race car driver. The engineers had put the Urus into a weight loss programme which has resulted in toning up from everywhere. The bumpers, roof, wheel arches, diffuser, front splitter and protruding roof spoiler are all made from the lightweight weave; even the bonnet and door panels have extensive carbon fiber usage; all that and the changed suspension set-up has resulted in shedding 47 kilograms. It now weighs 2150 Kgs with 16 Hp more at 666 Hp and the same 850 Nm of mind-boggling torque. Incredible feat. One additional driving mode, the “Rally mode” .
It sits below the Corsa mode and now you can actually go drifting with the Urus. More of it later. The “Performante” has a claimed figure of 0-100 kmph in just 3.3 seconds and a 0-200 kmph sprint in 11.5 seconds. It also has made a world record for the fastest SUV at the Pikes Peak course in a record time of 10:32.064! The new rear spoiler, air curtains, and Bonnet outlets have increased the downforces by 38%. It is also 10% more aerodynamic with improved engine compartment cooling. It has an option of 22-inch and 23-inch Pirelli Trofeo R tyres, increasing steering reactiveness and grip marginally.
Chapter 4 - The Design and seating
There is plenty of carbon fiber which adorns and wraps the car from all sides; the biggest chunk being on the Bonnet which makes it more than 3/4th surface; the lower half of the door panels, and at the rear, everything has extensive usage of carbon fiber. It is more aerodynamic by a margin of 10% . Surprisingly the rear seating is quite comfortable with a decent amount of headroom and legroom. To be honest, I was expecting cramped seating because of the sloping roof line, but the seats and lower ground clearance of 20 mm from URUS S have resulted in an excellent rear seat experience. Overall the dimensions are as follows: Wheelbase: 118.3” Length: 202.2” ; Width: 79.8” and Height: 63.7” just to give you perspective, the outgoing Urus is 64.5” in height. The Ultra titanium twin exhaust ports look out of this world. The design philosophy has been to make you ‘feel like a pilot’
Chapter 6 - The Conclusion
It can seat five pax, drive on the racetrack and an off road track and has a separate skill set up to tame both surfaces, looks gorgeous I Could not drive it on the road but should be fun. It takes on the DBX 707 , Bentley Bentagya and the upcoming Ferrari Purosangue and comes in shockingly sexy colours. If you have the money then you should be taking a test ride, if not like me then watch the first ride review which is streaming on TopGear Mag India you tube channel.
Engine: 4.0-litre twin-turbocharged V8
Power: 666HP
Torque: 850NM @ 2,300rpm - 4,500rpm
Gearbox: 8-speed ZF automatic
