Lambo 580 2

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LESS IS MORE ...

It’s like a time machine. Only it’s faster ...

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M

ies van der Rohe is widely regarded as the first industrial designer in history. Known for creating corporate identities for major 19th century brands, including AEG, he was inspired by architect Peter Behrens, who taught him ‘the great form’. Together, as two of the founders of modern architecture, they became proponents of simplicity of style, influencing art at the turn of the century, promising to unify all modes of cultural expression.

They also created the pithy - and now immortal observation - ‘Less is More’. This is one of the greatest design aphorisms ever coined, and is, in my estimation, the essence of Lamborghini’s outrageous Huracán LP580-2.

The world public debut of the first Huracán at the Geneva Motorshow in 2014 marked a new era for the brand. Firmly positioned in the luxury supersports car segment, this all-new car succeeded the beautiful Gallardo, and at a stroke redefined the benchmark for the genre.

The ‘2’ nomenclature indicates that power goes only to the back wheels, unlike the car’s current Huracán stable mates, and signals a return to Lamborghini’s roots. (see side bar). I honestly loved driving the four-wheel drive version - the LP610-4 – a while back, but the LP580-2 comes across as being a more serious driver’s car.

Lamborghini reckon they have turned its most technological car into the purest fun-to-drive machine.

After getting the call from Le Kap editor, Steve Swanepoel, asking if I wanted to try the car out, I had the feeling I was about to be schooled first hand in the ‘Less is More’ culture. The loss of fourwheel drive has its benefits, like saving 33kg for starters. Along with modifications to the suspension and aerodynamics, the car now feels different – in a good way. Franschhoek Pass came and went in a blur, and that extra front-end bite makes a huge difference to the agile turn in. The car seemed be pulled towards the road as the front digs hard as the car rockets towards the next hungry apex, bearing down with unrelenting grip. It’s a handling masterpiece.

With this mid-engined car, 60 percent of the mass is on the rear end, which translates into a much more intense driving experience.

I met the then Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann at the last Paris Motor Show, and he promised me that the car would be ‘a serious car for serious drivers; it is maximum driving fun. It will have controllability, rawness and excitement.’ He was not wrong.

It is true that the brand characteristics include naturally aspirated engines, extreme design, and all-wheel drive, but they are not the only supersports car manufacturer that makes four-wheel-drive cars. ‘But this doesn’t mean we’re unable to do what the others are doing, and to do it even better’, said Winkelmann.

Happily, not much else about the car has changed, aside from larger air intakes in front and unique taillights. The engine - a 5.2-litre,>

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naturally aspirated V10 and 7-spd dual-clutch automatic gearbox remains much the same, save for a small reduction in power in deference to the fact it no longer has four wheels to put the power down onto the tarmac. Will you miss the few kW of power? I think not. It still feels viscerally fast, urgent and cantering like a racehorse glistening with sinewy muscle.

One hundred kilometres per hour arrives in 3.4 seconds from standstill, along with an otherworldly metal on metal cacophony of sound. Come 8000 rpm, you reach maximum power and it’s as if the very powertrain that propels the earth spinning around at 1,666 km/h is right there in the leather lined cockpit with me. And, unlike some turbocharged engines it produces instantaneous throttle response anywhere on the revs band along with the unneutered exhaust note crackling and fizzing in my wake.

Like a president with his hands on the nuclear codes, you can adjust the car’s responses by toggling three modes on the steering wheel.

I called it the Jekyll and Hyde personality switch. Strada, meaning ‘street’ cuts in with stability control fairly early and it’s here you will experience some understeer if you push it through the bends. The Sport setting firms the optional magnetic dampers and will give you some generate manly oversteer. Fancy yourself as a drifter? Sport is your setting. But only if you’re man enough, because drifting this car takes some serious - ahem - cahoonas. But drift, it can, spectacularly.

Set it to Corsa - meaning ‘race’, and it firms the dampers even more and the car develops a more neutral cornering feel. Are you feeling lucky, punk? You can turn the ESC off completely (gulp), which allows the car to bang up against the rev limiter. Having pressed the nuclear Corsa button the full brutal potential of the LP580-2 is unshackled. All I’m saying is that you had better be skilled and have decent run-off areas in case you run out of talent. It’s so brutal, so stimulating that I caught myself tensing my core against the g-forces, and I forgot to breath during extended periods around some of the mountain curves. It’s that electrifying.

This two-wheel-drive model has created new levels of involvement to the car – and for those that can really drive, it offers a playful relationship between steering the car with the throttle as much as it does with the wheel. It communicates like few other cars through the palm of your hands, through the seat of your pants and through that melodic, beastly, heavenly, Machiavellian V10.

Few cars have ever captured the imagination of fellow motorists like this one does. From boy racers in pimped out Honda Civics urging me to drag race them, to blue-rinsed grannies smiling and letting me out of side turnings, the car has real gravitas.

Whilst I have no doubt this car has the potential to kick you if you lack the finesse, the driving experience rewards skill if you have it.

More than that, it completely epitomises the maxim of Less is More.

But all good things come to an end, and as I drove the car back in the rush hour traffic to the company’s Cape Town showroom, I replayed the multi-sensory experience that is Hùracan, as I cling to the quote “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”

The car has gone back, but the smile still endures. • Richard Webb

Lamborghini Huracán LP580-2 On sale Now Price Call Lamborghini South Africa in Cape Town on 021 419 0595 or in Johannesburg on 011 361 6500 Engine V10, 5204cc, petrol Power 427kW at 8000rpm Torque 540 at 6500rpm Gearbox 7-spd dual-clutch automatic; Top speed 320 km/h 0-100 km/h 3.4sec; Fuel Economy 11.9 l/100 km (combined) CO2 278g/km For further information: www.imperialcollection.co.za