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Prodigious engine, brilliant four-wheel drive system and innovative infotainment feature jointly make the Lamborghini Urus a superb drive
Automakers have always used the century sprint as the benchmark to measure their cars’ performance. Right up to around 10 years ago, a timing in the low 4-sec region was top-notch and would earn the staff of a marque’s engine department a huge pat on the back. This is not the case anymore. Nowadays, a handful of cars can easily crack the 4-sec barrier, but the majority of them are two-door, two-seat, low-slung supercars that weigh less than two tonnes.
The exception is the Lamborghini Urus, which comfortably sits four people and tips the scales at just under 2,200kg. When you put pedal to the metal, this Super SUV launches itself with the ferocity of the large, wild cattle it was named after.
Watching the Urus accelerate is akin to observing a fighter jet take off. It blitzes the century sprint in a scarcely believable 3.6sec. Leave your foot on the accelerator and 200km/h flashes by in 12.8sec. When the needle finally stops swinging, the speedometer would have indicated “305km/h”.
It’s only after you pop open the shapely bonnet of the car, look at its gem of an engine and pour over its vital statistics that you will understand why it’s able to accomplish such a performance. The Urus’ engine is a 4L petrol V8 twin-turbo unit with 650hp and 850Nm of torque on tap, while its weight-to-power ratio of 3.38kg/hp makes the car a world leader in the SUV category.
Manufactured from aluminium, the engine is the first turbocharged-type employed in a Lamborghini and the reason for its existence is simple—when the Urus needs to traverse off-road, it can deliver the high levels of torque, at low revs, necessary for those driving conditions. Compact in size and mounted low to optimise the car’s centre of gravity, the engine also sports twin-scroll turbochargers to produce maximum torque from as low as 2,250rpm.
