You can trust Lamborghini to invent an off-road supercar, the Huracan Sterrato
At one point the brakes were full of dust and the car started to vibrate wildly, but the unnaturally calm instructor just told me the solution is to ‘drive faster’ | WATCH ME
Is there anything as satisfying as facing the fear that you’re going to suck at something and make a total ass clown of yourself, and then upending all logic and actually being good at it?
I can’t honestly think of many times it’s happened to me, but when I was sent out to drive a V10-powered Lamborghini Huracan sideways at speed on a dirt track shaped like the Devil’s intestines, I was entirely sure that this was a job for a professional rally driver, and definitely not for me.
The troubling fact is that many motoring journalists are very, very good at this kind of thing. I was pretty sure that I would end up parked in a cactus, feeling like a prick, and slightly concerned that I could be killed.
This was no ordinary Huracan, of course. It was the new Sterrato, which is Italian for “the physical manifestation of the stupidest idea we’ve ever had”. It has chunky all-terrain tyres, pumped up wheel-guards, an air scoop on the roof (which is functional, because Lamborghini had to block up the side air intakes so they didn’t suck in dirt) and silly looking rally cross lights bolted to its nose like a pair of monostrils. Compared to a normal Huracan it’s had its ground clearance jacked up by 44mm, its suspension softened, and a “Rally” setting added to the steering wheel. It has also been detuned, but not by nearly enough for my liking (it’s still got 449kW and 560Nm, and will do zero to 100km/h in 3.4 seconds).
Drifting, let’s be clear, is hard: a dance of hands and feet that looks as magical as meringue when you get it right, but has the potential for maximum embarrassment and expensive injury if you get it wrong.
To show us what the world’s first all-terrain supercar can do, Lamborghini took over a race track outside Palm Springs in California and built a dirt circuit inside it, mirroring the tarmac one so that we could complete a lap that was 50-50 sealed road and deep dirt, sand and gravel.
The first, familiar part of the lap was hugely fun, the Huracan’s primeval roaring and soon-to-be extinct V10 hurling me at bends with lots of grip and ripple strips. And then my instructor pointed me at the dirt and straight into a fast left bend in the kind of sand that would come up to your ankles if you stood in it.
The next few minutes were an out-of-body experience that took me back to the boyhood joys of playing Sega Rally, but with roughly 10,000 times more adrenaline, sweat and huffing. Somehow I was actually doing this, drifting sideways through bends, Scando flicking into chicanes, throwing up rooster tails of dirt and not dying, even once.
It was, without exaggeration, some of the most fun I’ve ever had in a car. I loved it. Sure, when we got back on to the sealed part of the track the wheels and brakes were full of dust and the Huracan started to vibrate wildly, but the unnaturally calm instructor just told me to drive faster and it would all sort itself out.
When I got out of the car I buttonholed one of the engineers responsible for this mad machine and asked him how this car had allowed me to perform feats so far beyond my skills. While there were many technical reasons, the big one is basically the software attached to that Rally button – officially it’s called Lamborghini Dinamica Veicolo Integrata, but internally they refer to it more accurately as “the hero maker”.
Using a giant computer brain and various sensors measuring yaw angle, steering and throttle input, the Huracan Sterrato can infer what you’re about to ask it to do and push the torque to the wheel where it’s needed.
If it senses that you’re getting too big for your driving boots it will also apply a touch of brake to a particular wheel to keep you heading in the right direction, even if that direction is sideways.
Unlike many traction-control systems, you really don’t feel it working (although you can’t miss the light going berserk on the dash), so you can kid yourself that you really are capable of driving like this. There’s a good reason they didn’t let us turn the system off entirely.
What makes this car even more staggering is that despite its weird tyres, it’s not noisy or rough on public roads; indeed, thanks to its longer suspension travel it feels smoother than a normal Huracan, and its ride height also makes it more practical over things like speed humps and sharp driveways.
This, then, could be the ultimate, go-everywhere supercar, which is why it’s a shame they’re only making 1499 Sterratos, and they’re all sold already, even at a price of $503,949. It’s also the last ever variant of the Huracan, and I will miss all of them dearly.
Whether anyone who buys one will be willing to risk its expensive paintwork with gravel rash remains an interesting question, but I’d encourage them to try it.
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Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato
Engine: 5.2-litre V10 (449kW/560Nm)
Fuel economy: 16.7 litres per 100km
Transmission: Seven-speed dual-clutch automatic, all-wheel drive
Price: $503,949
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
