Is your house in the countryside? And do you have to take your kids to school every morning, through puddles and ditches? But do you think a Land or Range Rover is for the proletariat?
Then you’ll be happy to learn Lamborghini is working on a solution for you. Their new Urus SUV is going to be a king among mastodons, set to storm the market in 2017 at the soonest. Current consensus is that the sporty tank is going to be powered by a twin-turbo V8, for the simple reason that that takes up less space than the well-known Lambo V10. Funny, feeling the urge to be conservative with space in a humongous SUV.
Particularly because the Urus is going to be sharing its platform – given all of these brands belong to VW AG – with the VW Touareg, Audi Q7, Porsche Cayenne, as well as the new Bentley SUV and some of these aren’t exactly ‘motorically’ disabled (6.0 W12, 5.0 V10 TDI anyone?). On the other hand, the Italian daughters of the Germans have a design philosophy that commands them to make things lighter, seeking better and faster not in bigger engines, but in lower weight. Opting for a V8 with a bunch of bolt-on turbochargers is a lighter solution in itself, but also suggests the Urus will be less obese as a whole, and needing less propulsion as a result.
And that seems to become truth indeed, provided VW AG gives the green light, as the Urus is going to be the most petite of all its brothers and sisters, with ‘only’ 1,800 kilos. That’s what you call a light tank.
If, like me, you’re wondering what the hell the point is of overpowered tanks that can go off-road but will never actually do so: it’s a market with the biggest potential for growth, according to Lambo CEO Stephan Winkelmann, and the Urus is set to double their sales figures. Most of these buggers will be offset in emerging markets, to nouveau riche with a lot of money. Reason enough.
But doubling sales figures is ambitious, considering the Italians sold a total of 1,600 cars, Aventadors and Gallardos, in 2011.
