072 JULY 2019 →TOPGEAR.COM
he gun-slit-narrow rear view frames
a huge Lamborghini-manufactured
explosion of road detritus. The
accompanying noise is a combination
of dust, stones and rocks being thrown
up by all four driven wheels and their
impact in, around and under the car,
and it is brutally violent. The road hits a
rise which we crest and the car goes light, we touch down and I
jump on the brakes, turn in and the car starts to rotate. I get back
on the throttle and aim in one long sideways spray of dust, noise
and V 10 brilliance around the long left-hand turn in third gear.
While for most supercars this would be the wincingly
embarrassing paragraph describing the moment when it all
went wrong, when I ran out of talent and ended up talking to
our insurers... this is what the Lamborghini Sterrato was made
for. So, rather than my co-pilot bracing for impact, he continues
to offer encouragement: “This is nice. Gas, gas, gas.” As my laps
of the Strada Bianca rally stage continue, I learn to ignore the
noise and enjoy the experience.
Let’s rewind a bit... I’ve been invited to Nardò – the top-secret
test facility located at the bottom of Italy – by Lamborghini’s head
of R&D, Maurizio Reggiani, to test drive this skunkworks project:
the Huracán Sterrato. While there’s no direct translation of‘sterrato’ in English, the best approximation is ‘dirt’. Yes, this is
the Lamborghini Huracán Dirt. Like all the best projects, this one
has been developed by a highly enthusiastic team in their own
time, alongside other projects. While on first acquaintance your
reaction may be that they must have spent too much time in the
sun, dig a little deeper and these guys could well be on to
something. Just look at it. If, like me, you grew up on a diet of
Tamiya and Kyosho catalogues and building/racing/jumping RC
cars around your neighbourhood, the Sterrato is the full-size
realisation of those days.
The day starts with a technical briefing, which tries to insert
the Sterrato into a logical planogram of Huracán models.
Admirable, but I’m not sure it needs to fit into the model matrix.
In a world all too often stymied by analysis and user clinics, it’s
refreshing that Lamborghini still has the passion to create
something it thinks people will simply like. Something fun.
Something cheeky. If we’re honest, Lambo is the only carmaker
provocative enough to develop a project like this and show it, just
to see how its audience reacts.
The technical recipe for the Sterrato is as follows. Take one
Huracán Evo with naturally aspirated 5. 2 -litre V 10 delivering
631 bhp to the all-wheel-drive, rear-wheel-steering drivetrain.
Next, raise the ride height by 47 mm (handily improving ground
clearance, plus approach and departure angles) and retune the