On this episode of Ignition presented by Tire Rack
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MotorTranscript
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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!
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