Lamborghini Goes Off Road, Meet The Huracan Sterrato
Lamborghini has long been renowned for the more outrageous of supercars. The go-to poster pinup, the marque that's known for the raging bull has never been afraid of ruffling a few feathers. Quite often bonkers by design in both engineering and visual appeal, Lamborghini continues to push the boundaries of absurdity, and it’s latest creation takes the madness stakes to a whole new level.
Take a moment, when you think of Lamborghini, what are your first thoughts? Style, maybe? Crazy designs, perhaps? Or just the ultimate for what is possible from a hypercar? All of these statements fit themselves perfectly to Lamborghini, however, you can almost be certain when taking a moment just then, the words rally car or off-roader didn’t come into your mind…
Up until last week, you could be completely forgiven for making that thought process, however, everything has now changed, meet the quite simply bonkers Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato, a Huracan designed to take on and beat, even the most challenging of terrains.
Sounds crazy, doesn't it? Taking a Huracan off-road simply doesn’t compute, but here is one that can do just that. You might think that this is one of those outlandish concepts fed to the press to keep them happy in between motor shows, however, Lamborghini doesn’t seem to be messing around here.
So, what about the detail? As a base, the Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato takes the foundations of the recently launched Huracan Evo. A more hardcore version of the Huracan, the Evo was launched to the world back at March’s Geneva International Motorshow. The original Huracan was a hugely capable machine, however, it’s ‘Lamborghininess’ was quite often called into question.
It was considered too perfect, too easy to drive and also found itself on the receiving end of comments around its theatrics, was it Lamborghini enough? It’s hard to criticise Lamborghini for doing too good-a-job on the Huracan but perhaps it was too perfect for its own good? With the Huracan Evo however, Lamborghini is aiming to address this by adding more power and completely revising the aerodynamic philosophy where it’s claimed the Evo is seven times more efficient than it’s predecessor.
The Evo is certainly that little bit more Lambo and if you’re going off-road, a capable chassis isn’t a bad place to start so using this as a base for the Sterrato makes sense.
Featuring the same 640 bhp V10 engine to that of the Evo, the Sterrato is no shrinking violet. It features four-wheel drive and four-wheel steering both of which are there to add a range of ability to this unnatural off-roader.
Naturally given that this Huracan is going off-road, ground clearance needed to be a major consideration and Lamborghini’s boffins have raised the ride height by a full 1.85 inches. To add further clearance and to aid off-road handling, 20-inch wheels, which are now fitted with balloon tires, find themselves nestled under some eye-catching widebody wheel arches.
The wheel arches aren’t the only visual changes and there are further changes beyond the naked eye. Aluminium reinforcements are fitted across this machine in a variety of placements to protect the chassis when the going gets tough. This includes a number of skid plates for the Sterrato’s more delicate areas.
Lamborghini also states that the interior also receives a touch of off-road ruggedness with the interior witnessing a titanium roll cage and four-point seatbelts. To complete this new off-road image, Lamborghini has chosen to spec the Sterrato with a roof-mounted LED light bar and front bumper lighting, because, well, why not?
Whilst the Huracan Sterrato is just a one-off at this moment in time, it will be interesting to see if this concept is consigned to the shelves of history. Given Lamborghini is naturally good at coupe’s, going down this angle does seem somewhat of a curveball.
That said, Lamborghini does now have the highly acclaimed Urus and with the popularity of performance 4x4’s and SUVs continuing to gather at an unrelenting pace, maybe the idea of a Huracan off-roader isn’t such a hair brain idea after all?
