Lamborghini Huracan Performante

The Lamborghini Huracan Performante is easily the most irritating car I’ve ever driven – but that’s part of the charm.

Lamborghini Huracan Performante

We’re used these days to cars that beep and bong to warn us that something isn’t right. But when it comes to irritating noises, nothing gets close to the Lamborghini Huracan Performante. Bong it went when I set off on a chilly London morning. This was because its TSU was malfunctioning. I had no clue what its TSU was but it malfunctioned again moments later, with another bong to alert me. Then, after a minute or so, it did it again. This might have been bearable had it been regular but it had all the rhythmic timing of a bored dog.

So I called Lamborghini, which said it was a pre-production car and that its telemetry wasn’t installed properly. So I took it to a dealer, who applied a laptop and said that the bonging would now stop.

Bong, it said on the way back to the office. I reached for my glasses to see what was wrong this time. A message on the electronic dash said something called the MMI had become disabled. For acronyms, this thing’s worse than the army.

However, since the disablement of the mysterious MMI (it turned out to be the multimedia interface) was making no difference to my progress and there’d only been the one bong, I figured I could live with it.

That evening I left London for the country and as I joined the motorway the car bonged again. This time, the message said I should switch off the engine and check the oil level. It was 6pm, I was on the motorway and it was drizzling, so I figured it could wait until the next services.

But as I slowed for the slip road to the services, the warning light went out. It had obviously decided that there was, after all, enough oil in the engine, so I speeded up and 10 minutes later there was a bong to say the oil level was low and I should stop. Which I didn’t. I was too busy trying to turn on the sat nav, which wasn’t working. And then the oil warning light went out again. And all was well.

Except, it wasn’t. Because by this stage I was trying to find the windscreen wiper switch. Foolishly, Lamborghini has taken a leaf out of Ferrari’s book and mounted it on the steering wheel along with switches for every other damn thing. So each time you want to turn on the wipers you end up listening to Classic FM with your left indicator blinking.

It gets worse when you’re in the countryside and you need full-beam because you push the button and when you let go, the full beam goes out. So you push it again, except at this point you’re going round a corner so now you’ve turned off the wipers.

In desperation, I fumbled at the switches by my right knee until eventually all the lights went out. So now I’m doing 80km/h, it’s raining and dark and neither the lights nor the wipers are on.

Shortly after sorting all this out – by swearing – I came up behind an Audi that was being driven at 50km/h by a headrest with ears. I desperately needed to get home by 7pm so I put the Huracan in Race mode, which caused the dash to become one huge rev counter, and when we encountered a short straight I put my foot down.

Well, I’ve never heard a noise like it. Plainly, the engine was bereft of oil after all and had exploded. In a panic, I abandoned the overtaking and took my foot off the accelerator. And then I realised that, no, that’s just the noise a Huracan makes when you poke it with a stick. The sound starts off as a jackhammer, then builds into IEDs going off, Krakatoa, the Grateful Dead, a space shuttle rocket test, white noise, a latter-day V10 Formula One car at full chat, a squadron of F-15 Eagles on combat power, some lions, a hunt ball and a war. All going on in your car. At the same time.

And at that moment, I’m afraid I fell head over heels in love. This is a wonderful car. A brilliant car. A gem.

True, at 1.4 tonnes it’s a fatty, with a cumbersome four-wheel-drive system, and the 5.2-litre V10 – the last of the breed, surely – is broadly the same as the one in the standard car. Somehow, though, this thing is idiotically fast and exciting. In a straight line it’ll leave a Ferrari 458 Speciale for dead. And around the Nürburgring, it’s faster than any of the million-quid hypercars.

Yes, it’s also annoying – my pre-production test model was easily the most irritating car I’ve ever driven – but that’s part of the charm, too. That’s what gives it a soul. And that’s what turns a good car into a great one.

Lamborghini Huracan Performante

Engine: 5.2-litre V10 petrol (470kW/600Nm) Average fuel: 13.7 litres per 100km Transmission: Seven-speed dual-clutch automatic, all-wheel drive Price: $483,866 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars