DRIVES
Family
f
T I ES
by CONNER GOLDEN73
THE
URUS
MEETS THE
RAMBO LAMBO
IN ITALY’S
MOUNTAINS
GIVEN OUR PROCLIVITY for rakish hyper-
wedges, you might think we’d be first to take up torches
and pitchforks against the wave of uber-luxe and mega-
fast SUVs. But we’re big fans of vehicular variety—and
more important, if carmakers offering higher-volume,
family-friendly models helps to keep their niche sports
cars alive, we won’t complain too loudly.
There was certainly a precedent at Lamborghini for
a wild and wildly expensive super-utility. Whereas ve-
hicles such as Maserati’s Levante, Bentley’s Bentayga,
and Rolls-Royce’s Cullinan don’t have any real ancestry,
Lamborghini unveiled the Urus to a resounding cry of
“Finally!” from more than a few of the marque’s enthusi-
asts; for decades we’ve pined for a successor to the enig-
matic LM002, the “Rambo Lambo.”
Comparisons between the two are understandable,
but a head-to-head face-off is difficult to execute. With
only 300 LM002s produced between 1986 and 1992, your
chances of driving an LM are scarce; when Lamborghini
offered us a small window behind the wheel of a black
LM as part of its Winter Accademia ice-driving program,
we caught the first flight out for a day in the Alps.
As much as Lamborghini would love to take credit
for its prescience of the ultra-SUV boom to come, the
LM002 only went into production as a way to recoup
some cash after a series of failures. Its warfront-readylooks aren’t just for show: In 1977, the marque contracted
Mobility Technology International (MTI) to whip up a
desert-running, rock-crushing, soldier-hauling buggy
in hopes of securing a U.S. military contract.
The result was the infamous 1977 Lamborghini Chee-
tah prototype, an open-cockpit fiberglass desert runner
powered by a rear-mounted, 5.9-liter Chrysler-sourced
V-8 with 180 horsepower. It looked cool, but thanks in
large part to its atrocious handling and sluggish engine
performance, no one bit. Lingering interest was wiped