75
It emboldens you to a dangerous degree. As you wrestle the
heavy controls and drink in the waves of V-12 howl, you
might wonder who would win: the oncoming tourist bus or
three tons of military-grade steel?
Whereas the LM002 was born from failure, the Urus
was a guaranteed success before it left the designer’s
drafting board. Forget stillborn military desert MPV—this
Lamborghini was an amortized, semi-mass-production
commodity from the get-go. Buoyed by the roaring success
of the Bentley Bentayga, the Urus is the first super-sport
SUV to hit the market, beating out Aston Martin and Ferrari
high-riders still in development.
The Urus owes its existence in part to Lamborghini’s
membership in the Volkswagen Group’s thick portfolio of
brands. Under its origami exterior, it uses a componentDriving this beast is as wacky as you’d imagine. The nonadjustable, tri-
spoke steering wheel is nailed directly to the dash, rewarding you with feed-
back that’s oddly both heavy and loose at once. You saw at the wheel to keep it
going straight, thanks primarily to those steamroller tires up front. Faced with
the LM’s unmanageable mass, its 450 ponies feel more like 200 as we roar up
a narrow Italian mountain road. All three pedals are incredibly heavy, even the
throttle. Pressing the accelerator is like stamping a brick into semi-hardened
concrete, so attempts to rev-match and downshift smoothly are a lottery.
We’re cramped, sweaty, sore, and having the time of our lives. There’s some-
thing goose-bump-inducing when faced with the LM002’s tremendous absur-
dity. Snow, slush, rock, sand, road—whatever—it doesn’t make any difference.It’s not as mud-hungry as
the Lamborghini LM002, but
the Urus is more capable
off-road than its uber-
crossover looks suggest.