New Lamborghini Huracan LP 580-2 review ~ station of gear

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8 Dec, 2015 11:30am Steve Sutcliffe

New rear-wheel drive Lambo supercar is a peach to drive, and feels just as quick as its four-wheel drive brother

Lamborghini claims the new rear wheel-drive Huracan LP 580-2 has been in the planning stages for several years now. So it is definitely NOT a reaction to the fact that over 60 per cent of cars in this class remain rear, rather than four wheel-drive. And absolutely no way whatsoever is it a response to criticism that the original all wheel-drive Huracan, lovely car that it otherwise may have been, was a little bit of a shopping trolley when it comes to on limit understeer.

Whatever the truth of it, the new rear wheel-drive Huracan LP 580-2 is here, we’ve driven it, and – mostly – it’s a peach.

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At the heart of the LP580-2, behind its rear seats, sits a mildly detuned version of the four-wheel-drive car’s 5.2-litre V10 engine, now producing 571bhp instead of 602bhp. The main difference is that the rear drive car’s engine doesn't rev quite as high – it maxes out at 8000rpm as opposed to 8150rpm – so it produces less power, and a whisker less torque as well.

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However, the LP 580-2 weighs 33kg less than the LP 610-4, has a fractionally more rear biased 60/40 weight distribution, and takes just 0.2sec longer to reach 62mph from rest, at 3.4sec. The top speed is 199mph.

There are small but significant visual differences that distinguish the LP580-2, too. The new car gets revised front and rear styling, with air intakes in the two nose vents that are designed to increase downward pressure on the front axle, along with a fresh design of 19in ‘Kari’ wheels.

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Pirelli has developed a set of bespoke P Zero tyres for the rear-drive Huracan, with softer a compound at the front and a harder one at the rear. The front suspension is also 10 per cent stuffer at the front, with a slightly smaller anti-roll bar at the rear but the same springs rates as the LP 610-4. The main aim of such modifications, say Lamborghini’s chassis engineers, is to sharpen up front end bite and make the car more playful at the rear near the limit. They’ve set it up to oversteer, in other words, which is something the all wheel-drive Huracan categorically would not do.

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We drove the car only on the track, at the Losail Moto GP circuit in Doha, where there are lots of corners and lots of run off areas. So pretty much the perfect place in which to discover whether Lamborghini has made a wild animal out of the Huracan, or, whether it has merely turned it into the car it always should have been.

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The answer is the latter. The LP 580-2 feels balanced and fast, just as the four wheel drive car does, but it now has a much harper front end, a nice degree of adjustability engineered into its tail end that allows you to do much more with the car near the limit, but without it feeling in any way edgy.

Select Sport mode and the rear end will wag up to a point, especially if you enter a corner on a trailing throttle, but eventually the electronics will take over and the digital safety net will catch any mistake you might make.

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But what the LP 580-2 doesn’t do to any great degree is understeer. You turn in to a corner, and the nose homes right in on the apex. Go in too fast and the ESP will still trim your speed back via the brakes, but it’s not overly intrusive. And if you select Corsa mode – which stiffens everything up by around 10 per cent – and then turn the ESP system off, the LP 580-2 will oversteer with the best of them, and feels beautifully balanced even with an armful of corrective lock on and the rear tyres lit.

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Unlike the 4WD car, it leaves much more of the decision making up to you, rather than the electronics. For most car fans this is surely the way it should be with a machine such as this? After all, if you’re not feeling up to it, or the road is wet and/or slippery and your confidence isn’t quite where it needs to be to engage in such antics, you can always select Strada mode and leave all the electronic system switched on. The point is, there are many more options available to whoever’s is behind the wheel, be they budding Ken Blocks or mere mortals.

In the fullness of time the LP 580-2 may well form the basis of other, more focused versions of the Huracan; a Superlegerra version, for example, looks highly likely to appear at some stage, and almost certainly a Spyder model, too.

But for the time being the LP 580-2 naturally assumes the mantle as the most fun to drive version of the Huracan, as well as the cheapest; it will cost approximately £160,000 when it goes on sale in the UK early next year. By a fairly simple process of thought, that has to mean it’s the best Huracan outright as well. If ever there was a case of less being more, the LP 580-2 is it.

The LP 580-2 is the perfect example of a car in which less equals more. It doesn’t cost as much as the LP 610-4, it doesn’t have as much power or performance, and it is one driven axle down on its four wheel-drive brother. But in practice the rear drive Huracan is more fun to drive, has a far broader dynamic repertoire and is, in real terms, every bit as quick as the LP 610-4. It is the best Huracan by far. More of this from Lamborghini please.

Model: Huracan LP 580-2
Engine: 5.2-litre V10
Power/torque: 571bhp/540Nm
Transmission: Seven-speed auto, rear-wheel drive
0-62mph: 3.4 seconds

Top speed: 199mph
Economy: 23.7mpg
CO2: 278g/km
Price: £160,000 (approx)

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