Lamborghini Temerario review

I was concerned. It was not clear how replacing the sheer majesty of that naturally aspirated V10 at full cry with the blare of a flat crank, turbocharged V8 was going to help that particular cause. Nor the additional mass. Lamborghini (like Ferrari) makes it hard to know exactly how much its cars weigh in a form that can be driven because it quotes a ‘dry’ weight without fuel, oil or water on board. But comparing dry weights I think the gain is in the region of a quarter of a tonne. Half a Caterham in other words. Around 1800kg minimum on the road though I should add that our chums at Autocar weighed one at 1905kg despite wearing the ‘Alleggerita’ lightweighting pack. But that car may have had a stack of options on it; the one I drove certainly did, £131,140’s worth of them. You can buy quite a nice car for less than that. Like a 911.

The first sign that this might be a different kind of junior Lamborghini – it feels as ridiculous to write that word ‘junior’ as it must to read it, but there you go – comes almost at once. It’s easy to get into, not difficult to get out of. And hello, what’s this? I appear to be able to see out. Arrivederci letter box glass house, ciao decent forward and lateral visibility. It’s still no McLaren goldfish bowl, but in this world where being able to see is a far greater determinant of safe and enjoyable point-to-point speed than whatever grotesque amount of umphh it might put at your entirely theoretical disposal, so substantial a move in the right direction is as significant as it is welcome.

The man deputed by Lamborghini to help one baffled old hack understand how it all works leans in. Five minutes later he’s gone again. Once explained, and the HMI does need explaining, it’s all remarkably easy. Has it lost any charm because it no longer leaves you weeping with frustration at the sheer, pointless complexity of it all? Has it hell. To me, idiosyncratic Italian charm is mad button placement which nevertheless once found, stay found, and a speedometer and rev-counter located in adjacent postcodes. There is nothing endearing about a rubbish HMI and, as someone currently running an Alfa Giulia, a car with the worst HMI since the days of the early Gaydon Aston Martins, I know what I’m talking about.

We depart with a complete absence of theatrics. I’d like to say what a pity it is to no longer be able to send cats up trees and have neighbours staring daggers at you as you announce your arrival in their worlds via the medium of 10 or more over-fuelled cylinders, but actually I don’t miss it at all.

In the real world you get about three miles of EV range, enough to make sure you’re unlikely to know anyone you’re about to offend, before the V8 chimes in. It’s not a nice noise, but what flat-plane twin turbo V8 was so blessed? Only the F40 springs readily to mind.

Even so, it’s a sizable downgrade from the Huracan’s V10 musical extravaganza, and nothing it does all the way from idle to its scarcely believable 10,000rpm redline in any way changes that. Last time I drove a V8 that revved that high it was in a 1970s Formula 1 car with a Cosworth DFV mounted in the back. And I won’t hold against it the fact that ‘my’ Temarario had a hard limiter set at 9800rpm…

But for all that has changed, some things always stay the same down Lamborghini way, and the truth is I don’t like the seats in this one any more than I did the last or the one before that. This car had the fully electrified, heated and ventilated ‘comfort’ seats fitted and I’d bet plenty you’d be more comfortable with the thinner sports seats instead – a bit less superficial squashiness perhaps, but a great deal more support when it’s needed. Also, as part of that, I repeat £131,040-worth of options, it came with that aforementioned Alleggerita package which features some carbon bits and a titanium exhaust to drop the kerbweight by an essentially meaningless 25kg. It costs £51,550 and I think it germane at least to ask whether you’d think it a better place to park that amount of money than, say, a 981-era Porsche Cayman GT4.

The road is opening up now but there are still a few stragglers to dispatch. Then, an instant later, there are no longer. This car dispatches other cars as might Jos Buttler a pie to cow corner. At first I deliberately kept the gears high and the revs low as I let some heat find its way into the fat Bridgestones, and then found myself continuing with the approach because it would still overtake as rapidly as I wanted it to go. Later, when alone, I did stretch its legs in the lower gears and despite the weight that needs to be hauled, the results were like the first time you stick your finger in a light socket. It needs a race track and a big one at that and, freed from the need to think about other road users, sheep and the prison term that would undoubtedly await anyone caught putting this car properly through its paces in public, I expect the level of deployable performance on offer would be little less than astounding.

Then again, there is nothing new here: fact is for all its 907bhp, the Temerario’s power-to-weight ratio is actually inferior to that of both the Ferrari 296 GTB and McLaren 750S, at least when you do your maths based on dry weight, the only figures all three companies quote. So don’t go thinking it’s raised the performance game to an all new level because it hasn’t, any perceived accelerative advantage being conferred more by way of all-wheel drive traction than outright urge. And none of them can use more than a fraction of it in public anyway, so the entire argument would seem entirely academic were it not for the fact that, out there in the supercar-buying world where people prostrate themselves at the altar of power while ignoring weight almost completely, this stuff really matters.

It doesn’t to me. Of far greater interest is what happens when the road no longer runs straight and true. And there is a lot that militates against the Lambo here, particularly its weight (over 400kg more than the rear-drive, non-hybrid McLaren 750S) and potentially its driven front axle. And it is just at the point when you’re starting to wonder if this is another Sant’Agata machine that’s more impressive on paper than road when it springs its only really big surprise.

It’s terrific to drive. I spent hours in it on the most challenging roads I know in South Wales and revelled in its responses. As I have said so many times in the context of cars in this category, it’s not about power, performance, grip or anything else that can be so conveniently measured: it’s about confidence. How reassuring is it to drive fast? Does it feel like it’s on your side or that the only reason it’s put its arm around your shoulders is so that when that moment’s inattention or over-confidence comes along, it can slide some steel between your shoulder blades? And the more questions I asked of the Temerario, the more detailed and plausible the answers became. Choose the right mode – Strada or Sport – and the body control is phenomenal. Note I’m not even qualifying it with ‘for a car of this weight’. It’s just outstanding – period.

Predictably it’s a very different experience to what a far lighter McLaren with hydraulic steering would provide, less nuanced and ultimately less communicative too. It is a car you drive more with elbows and shoulders than wrists and finger-tips, more race horse than greyhound. On the limit its lighter, rear-drive rivals may provide more options, greater opportunity for freedom of expression but for now I’m just glad Lamborghini has come to market with such a car that so fully delivers on the promise of its appearance.

Because it’s so often not the way. On too many occasions we’ve had to wait until the final versions – think Countach qv, Gallardo LP550-2, Aventador SVJ and Huracan Sterrato – before we’ve known how good the car really can be. And maybe it’ll be that way again, and in a dozen years or so we’ll be goggling at a rear-drive, 800bhp, single electric motor 1500kg Temarario and muttering ‘should have been like that from the start’. But I think probably not and even if we do, for now at least and frankly somewhat contrary to my expectations this is the best ‘standard’ opening bid from Lamborghini I’ve encountered since I first drove a Murcielago 25 years ago.

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