On this episode of Ignition presented by Tire Rack
Category
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MotorTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 The word automobile literally means movement.
00:16 Transportation.
00:23 Indeed, the very purpose of an automobile
00:25 is to get us from point A to point B.
00:29 [CAR HONKING]
00:31 Mind you, if transportation was the only thing we used cars
00:34 for, we'd all be driving this.
00:37 Just a car, no style, no sound, no sex, no fun.
00:44 Thank God for Lamborghini.
00:46 The Lamborghini Huracan is an automobile
00:56 in the actual sense of the word, but it's not
00:58 a transportation device.
01:00 It's candy.
01:01 Totally unnecessary, delicious, and terrible for your health.
01:05 Would you want to live in a world without candy?
01:07 Hell no.
01:14 Also, five second rule.
01:16 [ENGINE REVVING]
01:20 Ah, Lamborghini, a car that exists
01:37 to put a smile on your face.
01:39 This is, of course, the Huracan, which
01:41 means it's the baby Lambo with the V10 engine.
01:44 The dash 2 in the name of this LP 580 dash 2
01:47 means this is the two-wheel drive version.
01:50 LP means, as always, longitudinale posteriore,
01:53 Italian for the engine is mounted longitudinally
01:56 and in the back.
01:57 580 is the horsepower count in metric.
02:00 That's 571 SAE horsepowers.
02:03 [ENGINE REVVING]
02:06 All of them coming from that naturally aspirated V10.
02:13 It's detuned slightly from the LP 610,
02:15 so it loses a couple of horsepower.
02:17 And it also loses 250 RPM.
02:19 So red line is a piddling 8,500.
02:30 Losing the front axle saves far less weight than you'd think.
02:32 It's only 73 pounds.
02:34 But that leaves the front wheels to concentrate on the steering.
02:38 And the steering is really good on this car.
02:39 It's got a lot of feedback.
02:41 It's got really great weighting.
02:44 All of that, though, is just a bonus.
02:46 It doesn't matter how these cars drive.
02:48 When it comes to Lamborghinis, listen to it and look at it.
02:52 The dash 2 has slightly different front and rear
02:58 fascias.
02:59 Larger intakes up front allow more air through
03:01 to reduce aerodynamic lift.
03:03 The rear has bigger openings underneath and between
03:06 the taillights.
03:07 But the difference is subtle enough
03:08 that you wouldn't notice it unless you saw this together
03:10 with the dash 4.
03:12 You will notice the brakes, as the dash 2
03:14 is the only Lamborghini to come with flowery steel rotors.
03:18 Luckily, this one does more than look good.
03:20 It delivers.
03:21 It delivers on the enjoyment that its looks promise.
03:25 This is a good car to drive.
03:26 And getting rid of that front wheel drive
03:28 solved the Huracan's biggest problem, which
03:30 was that it didn't want to turn.
03:32 It had Dodge Omni levels of understeer.
03:34 This turns right into a corner, and it puts all its power down.
03:38 Four-wheel drive was completely unnecessary
03:40 in the first place.
03:41 Oh, my god.
03:48 Lamborghini promised us that the two-wheel drive Huracan
03:55 would be the driver's car of the lineup.
03:57 So the next question is, is it Ferrari good?
04:00 No.
04:05 There's a big difference in philosophy here.
04:08 Ferrari now engineers its cars to just follow your wishes.
04:11 You don't know whether it's the hardware or the software making
04:13 it all happen.
04:14 It's absolute state-of-the-art chassis tuning.
04:17 That is not the case with Lamborghini.
04:19 This company doesn't participate in Formula 1,
04:22 so its road cars don't have to be the fastest
04:24 cars in the world.
04:25 All a Lamborghini has to do is be
04:27 outrageous-looking, impossibly loud, stupidly fast,
04:31 and at least in the past, completely and totally
04:33 unaffordable.
04:34 [ENGINE REVVING]
04:39 And this one is cheap.
04:41 OK, that's completely and totally untrue,
04:43 but it's cheap by Lamborghini standards.
04:44 It starts at under $200,000, which is like Acura NSX money
04:49 or Porsche 911 Turbo S. It's reasonable.
04:53 Speaking of things that are not reasonable,
04:55 the seats are a $7,200 option.
04:59 And they are, without a question,
05:01 the most uncomfortable seats I've ever tried.
05:03 Everyone gets in this car and is like, oh, cool, Lamborghini.
05:05 Ow!
05:06 They hurt.
05:07 They are beautiful, but they are not
05:09 shaped to fit a human being.
05:12 Whatever.
05:13 Everything else about this car, really nice to drive.
05:16 It's quiet, other than the mechanical noise
05:18 from the engine that you'd like to hear.
05:20 The transmission is good.
05:21 It rides well.
05:22 I can see out of it.
05:25 But those are all practical concerns,
05:27 and that's irrelevant in a Lamborghini.
05:29 This thing is all about wasting gas, making noise,
05:32 and going nowhere fast.
05:34 What better place than a racetrack
05:43 to drive around in circles and waste gas?
05:47 Club Motorsports is so new, it's not even open yet.
05:50 And it's already one of my favorite tracks in the country.
05:53 Why?
05:53 Elevation.
05:55 From top to bottom, this New Hampshire track
05:57 is 25 stories tall.
05:59 That's seven higher than California's famed Laguna Seca.
06:02 Best part?
06:03 Club Motorsports follows the hilly contours naturally,
06:06 like a great mountain road.
06:07 It's got a varying combination of low and high speed corners,
06:10 all with different camber, elevation change, and radii.
06:13 Also, it's stunningly beautiful.
06:16 All right.
06:26 First things first is launch control,
06:28 or as Lamborghini rather lewdly calls it, thrust mode.
06:31 Why?
06:32 Because it just started snowing
06:33 and we're in a rear wheel drive Lamborghini on a racetrack.
06:36 Let's go.
06:37 Just shifted at 9,000.
06:47 This track is insane.
06:56 It's like 13% grade over there.
06:59 And then you come down this huge hill
07:00 onto this huge braking zone
07:02 and just onto the front straight.
07:04 100.
07:06 110.
07:07 120.
07:09 130.
07:10 140.
07:12 146.
07:13 I'm braking early.
07:15 Look at that.
07:19 You can trail it in into gentle understeer,
07:22 get back on the power.
07:23 My God, it's so fast.
07:26 (engine revving)
07:28 The back does this crazy walk.
07:34 It's like the car saying, "I have way too much power.
07:37 I don't know what to do with it."
07:38 This turn we'll do second gear up this hill.
07:43 And brake on the way in and beautiful.
07:47 Jesus.
07:48 It's so fast.
07:55 The back end comes around so fast.
07:57 All right, hold on.
08:05 Bring it down a notch.
08:06 The Huracan has different drive modes
08:16 controlled by a switch Lamborghini calls ANIMA,
08:19 Italian for soul.
08:21 Well, actually, ANIMA's an acronym
08:23 for Adaptive Network Intelligent Management.
08:26 How very German.
08:27 The modes are strada, which means street,
08:30 corsa, which means race,
08:31 and sporta, which means sport.
08:34 Sport mode has something interesting though,
08:36 a drift mode that helps hold the car sideways.
08:38 Lamborghini says all I have to do is floor it,
08:48 turn in, and the computer will hold the drift.
08:50 Let's see if that works.
08:53 (laughing)
08:55 What the hell?
08:57 Nope.
09:01 Just spun a car with stability control on.
09:20 (car engine revving)
09:23 Just gonna go back into corsa mode
09:32 and switch everything off because, you know,
09:34 then I can behave terribly.
09:35 Other than the fact that this car
09:48 doesn't let me drag the brake
09:49 'cause it cuts the engine power,
09:51 it pretty much does what I want it to do.
09:54 The only real criticism I can say
09:56 is that it's a little spooky.
09:57 I mean, you get on the gas and just, boom,
09:59 it comes around so fast.
10:01 (laughing)
10:03 You have to be on your A game
10:05 the entire time you're driving this car.
10:07 It's fun, and I guess that's the point.
10:10 I wish I could trust it a little bit more,
10:12 but, you know, then it might not be as fun.
10:15 (tires screeching)
10:18 And fun is why we're here.
10:21 You don't eat candy for its nutritional benefits,
10:24 so dissecting the Huracan's engineering
10:26 or handling or power would be like
10:28 reading a nutrition label on a bag of candy.
10:30 Oh, wow, only 10 milligrams of sodium?
10:33 How very fascinating.
10:36 Who cares?
10:37 Does the Lambo taste good?
10:38 Oh, yeah.
10:39 Is it perfect?
10:40 Absolutely not.
10:41 It doesn't need to be.
10:43 It's not an automobile.
10:44 (engine revving)
10:46 It's a Lamborghini.
10:47 (dramatic music)
10:55 (engine revving)
10:58 (laughing)
11:14 (laughing)
11:16 (laughing)
11:23 (engine revving)
11:32 (tires screeching)
11:35 (car engine revving)