Motor Trader The award-winning and longest running UK magazine for car retailing professionals. Your first stop for News, Jobs and Reports for the motor industry.
Lamborghini is to join the ranks of luxury SUV manufacturers with the Urus.
The supercar brand, which has only eight dealers in the UK, unveiled the SUV in its home city of Bologna, Italy. First deliveries will be in the spring of 2018 at prices yet to be announced, but expected to be from around £165,000.
Lamborghini describes the Urus as the world’s first Super SUV claiming that it is faster than all of its expected rivals, with a 0-62mph time of 3.6 seconds and a terminal speed of 190mph.
The Urus is powered by a twin-turbo 4-litre V8 engine producing 650hp and 850Nm of torque, Lamborghini moving away from the naturally-aspirated engines of its sports cars to ensure that the SUV offers the low-range pulling power needed when running off road.
The Urus is fitted with permanent all-wheel-drive with a locking differential that divides torque 40/60 front to rear in normal use, but can send up to 70% to the front wheels, 87% to the rear. The six cockpit-selectable driving modes include off-road, sand and snow modes.
Technology taken from the sports cars includes four-wheel steering, turning the rear wheels by up to three degrees to aid manoeuvrability at low speeds and stability at high speeds. Active torque vectoring and carbon-ceramic brakes are also fitted.
The Urus uses a Volkswagen Group platform which it shares with the Bentley Bentayga, Audi Q7 and Porsche Cayenne. Lamborghini is also claiming that its SUV is one of the most coupe-like offered in the sector, with its profile two-thirds metal and one-third glass.
Lamborghini sports cars are referenced in the exterior design, including a peak on the bonnet reminiscent of the Miura and Aventador, and diagonal bonnet lines first seen on the Countach.
A new plant has been built for the Urus at Lamborghini’s Bologna base, and the model is expected to double the brand’s annual production volume to around 7,000 cars a year. Lamborghini production rose 6.5% in 2016 to 3,465 units. Later expansion of the Urus range is likely to include a plug-in hybrid model.
Andrew Charman
