Lamborghini’s Huracan Sterrato is a wild machine

This epic supercar is everything a Lamborghini should be – an unashamedly ostentatious tribute to high-visibility performance.

Sterrato plus minus

Supercars aren’t sensible

And this might be the least sensible of the lot. Of all the things the world needs today, a high-riding, mid-engined, half-million-dollar supercar with a savage ten-cylinder engine and rally tyres was hardly a tier-one priority.

Yet here we are.

The Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato in its element. Photo: Supplied

This Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato serves as a farewell to the brand’s long-serving and most successful supercar, a model that has featured on countless bedroom walls, YouTube clips and video games since its debut more than a decade ago.

It’s likely to be the last V10-powered car offered to the public, and it can be yours for a little over $500,000 plus options and on-road costs. Call it $650,000 drive-away.

The Sterrato feels like a caged animal on the road. Photo: Thomas Wielecki

The details are too cool

The Huracan was already one of the best-looking cars on sale, and the Sterrato treatment takes it to another level.

It has significantly wider bodywork, with riveted-on panels that would look at home in a Mad Max movie or late-night drifting showdown.

It has body armour. It has raised suspension with an additional 44 millimetres of ride height.

Smaller 19-inch wheels allow fitment of enormous rally-spec Bridgestones designed to claw at soft and slippery surfaces.

It’s hard to take a supercar with spotlights seriously. Photo: Supplied

The roof intake is functional, positioned clear of the dust and debris that could foul the air filters of less purposeful machines.

It sounds magnificent too. Stab the throttle and you’re treated to a guttural gulp overhead.

There’s a turbulent resonance from the overhead intake that is undeniably exotic and normally reserved for open-wheel race cars or blue-chip exotics such as the McLaren F1.

It’s a riot to drive

The Sterrato holds an odd distinction of being both the slowest and most engaging supercar in the Lamborghini showroom.

The triumphant and truly ostentatious motor makes 449kW and 560Nm, which should be enough for it to be one of the fastest cars on sale.

But Bridgestone Dueler rally tyres return traction to rival a puppy on polished tiles, so it spins all four wheels on the way to a 3.4 second sprint to 100km/h, and is limited to “just” 260km/h.

Those big exhaust pipes play a magnificent tune. Photo: Thomas Wielecki

We’ve been here before with the Porsche’s Dakar – the most fun 911 in years.

Taller springs exaggerate weight transfer, which means the front end pitches and dives like a powerboat, making it easier to unload the rear end on the way into a corner.

Limited purchase from the rock-hard rubber results in a car that wants to slide every time you change direction. Even in the dry, it wants to slither like a work ute on a damp winter morning. This requires discernment, finesse and self-control on the part of its pilot, which might be asking too much of folks who spent house-tier money on a wedge-shaped orange paddock basher.

And promises to be even better on dirt

The Sterrato is designed to do insane things in insane places – landing epic jumps, blasting across along gravel roads at 200km/h, and performing powerslides to have skid master Ken Block cheering on from the heavens.

And it will look impossibly cool doing so, scything through the landscape at low altitude like a jet fighter evading The Baddies.

Lamborghini’s Huracan Sterrato is unforgettable to drive. Photo: Thomas Wielecki

And you can even do it while using special rally lights that turn night into day, as long as you have three arms. Because you turn them on by pressing a button near your right knee, then pressing (and holding) a high beam button on the left side of the steering wheel, then pressing a mysterious across the other side of the dashboard that activates rally lights probably (totally) not intended (allowed) to be used on public roads.

And you better have deep pockets or a very understanding insurance company to try dodging rocks in an Italian exotic. We lack both, so we settled for an afternoon on tar.

You can hear the new one coming

A replacement for the Huracan is just around the corner.

It won’t have a howling, visceral 5.2-litre V10. But it will have a 4.0-litre V8 bolstered by twin turbochargers and three hybrid motors. It will be a little more sensible than the Sterrato.

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Originally published as Lamborghini’s Huracan Sterrato is a wild machine