As you wake in the cool gray tones of a coastal spring morning, your A.I. Your partner rolls in bed, murmuring. Down the hall, the kids grumpily snooze their alarms. You lever up, swing feet onto polished concrete, and the hammer of another day in paradise comes crashing down. Why aren鈥檛 you happy? What can fill this hole? Nothing, really, because happiness comes from within, and you鈥檝e been on empty for a decade. As you wrestle with this fact yet again, turning it over for an unseen edge, a hidden seam, you catch a lime-green glimpse out the window, breath hitching. It wasn鈥檛 a dream. You let out a whoop, running through the house. We鈥檙e taking a family day! The trouble with success is that it is cumulative. When you have the perfect family, the perfect job, the perfect life, 鈥減erfect鈥?becomes normal, and normal sucks. You need something more. Loosed on track at Vallelunga in Italy, a scant two sessions of three hot laps each in the offing, the Urus rises to the challenge.
No. But it鈥檚 handily the world鈥檚 most dynamically capable production SUV, and would easily be able to hang with any flock of super-sedans in the hands of a capable and confident driver. Better yet, unlike those spiffy super-sedans, the Urus鈥檚 party doesn鈥檛 end when the pavement does. A few hundred meters away, a rally-style course carved from the Italian hillsides adjacent to the track is our next playground. Smoother than your average wild dirt road, but laden with fine, silty dust and volcanic gravel, the dirt course is less about off-road challenge and more about low-friction fun. Here, the Lamborghini鈥檚 variable all-wheel-drive system has its chance to truly shine, allowing big-throttle wallops to sling the tail around like a Coolidge-era bootlegger, with digital witchery managing torque, slip angle, and more. Genuine fun鈥攋ust don鈥檛 forget the protective wrap for the neurasthenic paint. But these forays into malaise delay can鈥檛 last forever.
A weekend here, a vacation there, and you鈥檒l be right back in the loop of death by perfection. Fortunately, this Lamborghini isn鈥檛 just for the occasional dalliance. It鈥檚 for life, all of it. Those grumpy, sleepy kids might only be waist-high now, but soon they鈥檒l be gangly teens, straining for their own space everywhere but the back seat of the Urus. Given the Urus鈥?fastback profile and low overall height (just 64.5 inches tall), you might think it鈥檇 exclude taller passengers in the second row, but you鈥檇 be wrong. The Urus is designed to comfortably fit passengers as tall as 6-feet, 3-inches tall. I鈥檇 have no problem crossing the county, or a continent, in any of the available seats. Given the choice, however, I鈥檇 choose the driver鈥檚 seat. On the road, the Urus is surprisingly refined overall, from ride comfort to wind and road noise. There鈥檚 a bit of chop over rougher pavement, a problem no doubt worsened on the available 23-inch wheels (the world鈥檚 largest offering from a car manufacturer, for what that鈥檚 worth)鈥攑erhaps the reason those huge rollers weren鈥檛 available for our testing.
We made do with the 22-inchers that were available, and even with the occasional rough spot, found nothing worse than you would in a sedan of equivalent performance. Behind the spacious and comfy rear seats, Lamborghini has TARDISed in 21.7 cubic feet of storage space鈥攅nough for two golf bags placed cross-wise鈥攐r up to 56.4 cubic feet with the rear seats laid flat. Gear, groceries, room aplenty. Of course, it isn鈥檛 easy getting all of these seemingly conflicting features to come together, especially for a brand that鈥檚 historically built go-fast performance art. But thanks to Lamborghini鈥檚 chief technical officer Maurizio Reggiani and his team of engineers, that鈥檚 exactly what the company managed to do. The engine, traditionally, has been the heart of a Lamborghini. But the Urus鈥檚 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8 is based on a Volkswagen Group design. 鈥淭he cylinder block comes from the group,鈥?says Reggiani. 鈥淭he job that we did is in the more important part of the engine. If you want to have power, that is in the cylinder, right?
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