it was always a childhood dream of mine to drive a Lamborghini, I just never
thought that the first one that I get behind the wheel of would be an SUV but
that's what we're here with the 2019 Lamborghini Urus and we're here to test
it on both track and offroad let's see how it did
any discussion about the Urus starts with the numbers under the hood a
twin-turbo v8 the first one some Lamborghini and it makes 650 horsepower
now that's enough to sling this car from 0 to 62 miles an hour in just 3.6
seconds and it gives it a top speed of 190 miles an hour 190 and an SUV sounds
crazy we didn't get anywhere close to that today but after driving it I do
believe that I can get up that fast the roof does share some parts in common
with other vehicles that are more well known such as the Audi q7 the Porsche
Cayenne it rides on one of Volkswagens platforms called the MLB platform and
while it does share a platform with other vehicles there's enough done here
to really differentiate this car from the others it has a ton of work that's
gone into the suspension into the engine in just the whole driving experience
that really transforms it it's really unlike any other SUV that I've driven on
that platform so during our testing in the u.s. today we got the testing in
really three kind of distinct environments two of which are kind of
common for testing an SUV and one which really isn't and we're going to start
with that one and that's on the track now the Auris is fast that goes without
saying 650 horsepower under the hood but we're really surprising about the Urus
were two things and that was its balance and it's braking now balance it has
something called active roll bar it has basically a really really smart
suspension that works to mitigate body roll in all directions so what the kind
of byproduct is that is is that the SUV stays really flat whether you're
cornering whether you're accelerating whether you're braking you can kind of
feel all that technology working underneath you and it makes you feel
really stable at speed and under heavy load what also helps things is the
all-wheel drive system and the standard kind of torque split board is 40 front
60 rear but Lamborghini says that changes all the time basically the
computers are always working trying to find an optimal torque split for whoever
you're driving and on the track in certain drive modes that means that it
really gets aggressive they could send up to 89 percent of the torque to the
rear wheels and 70 percent to the front wheels so it's always moving power
around to the right wheel to give you the most grip and the most power coming
out of occur now there's one byproduct of this that's
a little bit weird and that is that this car doesn't actually feel that fast
the suspension does such a good job of mitigating body roll even when you're
accelerating and you're really moving it doesn't quite feel like it I was on the
back straight of the track here at thermal I got it to about 110 miles an
hour and it didn't really feel like it at all now the second thing I mentioned
is the braking 17 inch rotors upfront 14-inch rotors in the rear those are
pretty much the biggest kind of breaks that you can get the arisa's breaks are
powerful enough that they bring the car down to a stop really quickly it goes
down from 62 to 0 miles an hour they say in 33.7 meters which for those of us who
live in the United States that's about 110 feet and really really good stopping
power we actually did an exercise where we started in a box
accelerated fully all the way up laying on the brakes as hard as you could
accurate the ABS while doing an evasive maneuver and it's incredibly stable in
emergency situations I was able to actually slam on the brakes activate the
ABS turn the car and avoid an obstacle in the road all at once without the car
feeling out of sorts at all usually with SUVs when you get really heavy on the
brakes they get pretty squirrely this thing really confident on the brakes and
that was actually one of the things that impressed me the most about the SUV this
suspension doesn't just do wonders on the track the added stability is great
on the street as well the earth rides over bumps in the roads like they don't
really exist and one of its driving modes strada
means street in Italian and it actually tones down the throttle response as well
as the exhaust so you can actually kind of drive the uris around incognito which
isn't really something you can do in another Lamborghini and instead of
turning all the heads you'll turn maybe half of it the final area in which we
put the Urus through its paces today it was off-road and its off-road modes
it does raise the car by about an inch to give it a bit more ground clearance
now we didn't do any rock crawling with it we ran it through some gravel and
sandy roads out here in the desert and it did a really good job getting over
bounce without jarring the car and the other thing is it's got enough power in
it that you can kind of use the throttle the skier so if you come into a corner
on a gravel road pretty hot in this car the transmission and the all-wheel-drive
system is smart enough to put down your little sideways and it just shoots you
right out of the corner it is really really good on dirt the SUV revolution
is here and it's even affecting companies like Lamborghini and Aston
Martin these ultra luxurious high-performance car makers which aren't
able to get by anymore just making sports cars but the good
is Lamborghini seems to be pretty good at making SUVs the 2019 Urus is on sale
now for a cool 200 grand and if you have that much money you could find a vehicle
that's capable on-road off-road and on the track all in one