2017 Lamborghini Huracán Performante—Can a Bull Jump Over the Moon?

MotorTrend

On this episode of Ignition presented by Tire Rack

Transcript

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00:46 - This is the Lamborghini Huracan Performante.

01:00 And it's the car that not only set,

01:04 but shattered the production car lap record

01:07 on the Nurburgring Nordschleife by nearly five seconds.

01:12 (car engine roaring)

01:14 Think about the car that held the record previously,

01:16 the Porsche 918 Spyder.

01:18 The 918 almost cost a million dollars

01:21 and made nearly a thousand horsepower.

01:24 The Performante, how did it go 4.99 seconds quicker?

01:28 (car engine roaring)

01:30 This puppy's got a secret weapon.

01:32 What is it?

01:33 Watch and find out.

01:35 (car engine roaring)

01:38 (dramatic music)

01:41 (upbeat music)

01:46 First thing you should know about the Performante

02:01 is the working title was the Superleggera,

02:04 which is a classic Lamborghini name.

02:05 In fact, Maurizio Reggioni, the head of R&D for Lamborghini

02:09 and a Volkswagen board member,

02:10 he wanted to call it Superleggera.

02:12 But the thing is the car is about performance,

02:16 not just lightweighting.

02:17 So they call it Performante,

02:18 which is how you say performance in Italian.

02:21 That said, the weight is down.

02:24 We weren't able to weigh the car,

02:25 but figured the Performante is about 100 pounds lighter

02:28 than your garden variety Huracan.

02:29 How'd they do it?

02:31 Largely, forged carbon.

02:33 The first time we saw Lamborghini use forged carbon

02:35 was for the chassis of the wildly sinister Sesto Elemento.

02:39 For the Performante, forged carbon is used

02:41 for the front splitter, the big rear wing,

02:44 and the uprights it rests upon,

02:45 as well as the rear diffuser.

02:47 The rest of the weight savings comes

02:49 from the new back pressure relieving exhaust system,

02:51 which is not only lighter and louder than the basic car,

02:54 but more importantly, it gives the Performante more power.

02:59 So it's the same 5.2 liter 40 valve naturally aspirated V10

03:04 that you'd find in the regular Huracan,

03:06 only here it's topped off by this beautiful gold head

03:10 straight off the Super Trofeo cars.

03:12 Hey, Lamborghini, racing improves the breed.

03:15 That gold head combined with new intake and exhaust valves,

03:19 plus the aforementioned lower back pressure exhaust system,

03:22 means the Performante has 30 more horsepower

03:25 and 40 more pound feet of torque.

03:28 So far so good, right?

03:29 And it all does sound impressive,

03:32 but it's only half the story.

03:33 (engine revving)

03:36 (upbeat music)

03:46 (engine revving)

03:48 - Look, so much torque.

04:08 180, 220 kilometers an hour.

04:14 137.

04:16 (engine revving)

04:18 115.

04:19 It's so fast.

04:22 It's just like a Lamborghini.

04:29 It's just brutal.

04:31 (engine revving)

04:43 The Performante is freakishly, forcefully,

04:46 ferociously quick.

04:48 With 631 horsepower and about as much weight

04:51 to haul around as a Ford Focus RS,

04:52 this should come as no surprise.

04:54 Remember, the regular strength Huracan

04:57 is among the quickest accelerating cars we've ever tested.

05:00 This special performance version

05:01 should blow some hair pieces clean off.

05:03 Hey Veyron owners, you're on notice.

05:08 Acceleration aside, how does it handle

05:10 compared to the average Huracan?

05:12 If you remember our video

05:14 with that Kermit the Frog green Huracan,

05:16 you remember we loved the way it handled.

05:18 Why?

05:19 Well, because that one was a fixed spring example.

05:22 Most of the Huracans out there have magnetic ride control

05:24 and let's be honest, they weren't very good.

05:27 The run of the mill Huracan was Lambo's first attempt

05:30 at implementing magnetic dampers.

05:32 That iteration wasn't ready for prime time

05:34 and as a result, the car was an understeering mess.

05:38 The wickedly unhinged Aventador Super Veloci, however,

05:41 was their second attempt and a major success.

05:44 Now, their third attempt is the Performante

05:47 and I gotta tell ya, they really, really nailed it.

05:51 The other complaint with the Huracan was the ABS system.

05:56 It was as if the brakes couldn't keep up with the car.

05:59 Well, they fixed that too.

06:00 That was one of the priorities that Reggioni's group had

06:02 when they were making the Performante.

06:04 While the off the shelf Huracan's ABS system

06:08 wasn't properly calibrated to deal

06:10 with that car's abilities,

06:11 the Performante's system is nearly invisible.

06:14 The brakes now work in lockstep harmony

06:17 with the all new super sticky,

06:18 specifically designed for this car, Pirelli Corsas.

06:21 So we're braking, used to be a shortcoming with the Huracan,

06:25 not with the Performante.

06:28 (car engine roaring)

06:30 I need to stress to you that the Performante

06:33 is more than just a body kit and a loud exhaust pipe.

06:37 Everywhere you look, everything has been revised.

06:40 (car engine roaring)

06:41 The transmission shifts quicker.

06:44 The all wheel drive system, it puts down power better.

06:46 The springs are stiffer.

06:48 The roll bars, stiffer.

06:50 The ESC system, the nannies, they're better.

06:54 Everything about this car is just boosted to the max.

06:58 I mean, when comparing it to a normal Huracan,

07:00 it's just a different car.

07:03 It really is.

07:04 I mean, it's outstanding.

07:06 It's astounding.

07:07 (car engine roaring)

07:10 This might be an episode where we let the car do the talking

07:17 because it has so much to say.

07:19 (car engine roaring)

07:22 For you skeptics saying, "We've seen all this before."

07:34 Yeah, haven't, trust me.

07:36 When Porsche takes a GT3 and gives it the RS treatment,

07:39 they make it edgier and racier.

07:41 The performance envelope has expanded,

07:43 but anyone this side of "Randy Post"

07:45 will not be able to access the extra performance.

07:48 That is not the case with the Performante.

07:51 Why?

07:51 Because this car has a secret weapon.

07:53 The Performante's secret weapon is called Allah,

08:05 as in aerodynamica Lamborghini Activa.

08:08 Basically, it's an innovative way to do active aerodynamics.

08:12 Not only is it innovative, Lamborghini patented it.

08:16 Not only did they patent it,

08:18 when they presented this technology to the Audi board,

08:21 a certain board member proclaimed,

08:23 "Why didn't Audi invent this?"

08:25 Here's a quick and dirty explanation of how it all works.

08:28 Up front, you got a splitter.

08:29 In that splitter, there's a little electronic flap,

08:31 so when there's too much drag, it'll open up,

08:33 decreasing downforce, but reducing drag.

08:36 The same principle applies at the rear.

08:37 These uprights are hollow.

08:39 They're fed by these intakes right here.

08:41 The air goes up through the uprights

08:43 and exits out a slit on the bottom of the wing.

08:45 Just like up front, there's two flaps

08:47 that can open and close that can control that.

08:49 We've all seen moving rear wings.

08:51 Think Bugatti Veyron, any modern McLaren,

08:53 or even Lambo's own Centenario.

08:55 They all work, especially as air brakes,

08:57 but there are three major problems with them.

09:00 First, while the wings themselves

09:01 are carbon fiber and light,

09:03 the hydraulic fluid and the pumps necessary

09:05 to float around are heavy.

09:07 Next, hydraulic wings take about one second

09:10 to fully deploy.

09:11 Think of a ground you cover

09:12 while you're waiting for an air brake

09:13 to change its angle of attack.

09:15 Finally, when they do deploy,

09:17 they're only acting on the rear of the car,

09:20 which causes the front end to go light.

09:22 A light front end means understeer,

09:24 not ideal when you're braking for a corner.

09:27 - All of fixes all three problems.

09:29 It's quick.

09:30 These flaps take .2 seconds to open and close.

09:33 It's light because it's just hollow carbon fiber,

09:36 and it keeps the weight distribution the same

09:38 because it's working front and rear.

09:40 Now, that all sounds really good in a boardroom,

09:43 but how does it actually work out on the track?

09:45 (car engine revving)

09:49 Brilliantly!

09:49 That's the only word for it.

09:51 It is brilliant!

09:53 As I'm turning right,

09:55 there's still downforce on the inside wheel,

09:58 there's no force on the outside wheel,

10:01 so it rotates more,

10:02 meaning it needs less steering input.

10:04 Less steering input means you're going quicker.

10:07 Everything about this car

10:08 is just designed to make you feel heroic.

10:10 (car engine revving)

10:14 So the active aerodynamics on this car,

10:26 they help you go faster,

10:27 they help you brake harder,

10:29 and they help you turn better.

10:31 And then you combine the active aerodynamics

10:33 with every other improvement they've made,

10:35 and the car, it's just, it's a confidence builder.

10:38 I can't tell you how confident I feel

10:41 behind the wheel of this car.

10:43 I'll tell you what this car reminds me of.

10:45 I'll never forget this one time

10:46 we lapped a GTR around Laguna Seca.

10:48 There was a Ferrari engineer standing there,

10:51 and he says, "You know, we know everything about that car.

10:53 "We know how much it weighs,

10:54 "and we fed all that information into our simulator,

10:57 "and there's no way that car is as fast

11:00 "around the Nurburgring as it is.

11:02 "They must be doing something."

11:03 And Randy was standing there,

11:04 and he goes, "Yeah, I know what it is.

11:06 "It's confidence, driver confidence."

11:09 (car engine revving)

11:10 That's the secret of the perfumante.

11:13 That's the real secret.

11:14 That's the X-Factor.

11:16 That's the thing that they can't put in the press kit,

11:19 that you gotta get in the car and experience for yourself,

11:22 because it is mind-blowing.

11:24 I am just blown away.

11:27 This machine.

11:28 Just blown away.

11:32 After two magnificent days on Imola with the perfumante,

11:38 my takeaway is this.

11:40 While many cars receive the hardcore track treatment,

11:43 the Huracan perfumante plays in a league of its own.

11:46 Lamborghini has outdone not just the competition,

11:49 but themselves.

11:50 In terms of track, this is not just the quickest Lamborghini.

11:54 It's the quickest street-legal production car

11:56 you can currently buy.

11:57 If you're a good driver, it makes you great.

12:00 If you're a great driver, it makes you a hero.

12:03 If you're a hero, chances are good,

12:05 you just set a record on the Nurburgring.

12:07 To all you doubters out there,

12:09 we really did land men on the moon.

12:12 With the perfumante, so did Lamborghini.

12:14 (gentle music)

12:17 How did it do it?

12:25 Well. (engine revving)

12:27 Sorry, it's really nuts to be going 160 miles an hour

12:30 turning, braking. - I'm stressed.

12:32 - Ah!

12:33 [MUSIC PLAYING]

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