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Lamborghini Huracan STO Road Test: If death metal was a car

MALIBU, Calif. — If heavy death metal music were a car, it would be the Lamborghini Huracan STO. This is not your run-of-the-mill Lamborghini. It doesnÂ’t have all-wheel drive. The floor and doors are essentially bare carbon. It has a complex clamshell front end/hood you manually open with a plastic prong — under it, thereÂ’s barely room for a racing helmet. There are only three drive modes, a pittance for a modern supercar. A super-low, zero-forgiveness full carbon fiber front bumper/splitter is fitted that will torment your mind on every grade change. Its dry weight (the only one Lamborghini quotes) is only 2,942 pounds. That last bit — its low-for-a-Lambo weight — is the secret ingredient in what makes this STO drive like a special machine. Forget any stereotypes you may have about todayÂ’s Lamborghinis being the porky, easier-to-drive Italian supercar. The STO is pure, old-school Lambo. It looks those preconceived notions in the face and slaps them aside as quick as the 5.2-liter V10 can rev to its 8,500 rpm redline. That is, very, very quickly. The death metal begins as soon as you drop into the carbon buckets. In proper race car fashion, there are no traditional grab handles on the bare carbon door. Instead, a flexible piece of fabric is fashioned as a pull, and it works quite well. Getting out could be confusing for those new to track-focused machines like the STO, as the red strap suspiciously poking out of the door is actually a handle that you pull to activate. Adjusting the seat is all manual work — every extra electric anything would just add weight.  YouÂ’ll quickly learn that thereÂ’s a reason carpeting is the floor material of choice for every car out there, as the optional $4,600 carbon fiber floor mats optioned on this STO make for a SlipÂ’N Slide-themed pedal box. It can be acclimated to (your shoe choice has never mattered more), but good old-fashioned carpeting canÂ’t be beat. Everyday functionality was the last thing on LamborghiniÂ’s mind when creating the STO, though. One quick look at the rearview mirror makes this abundantly clear. While youÂ’ll see flashes of trailing traffic in between the louvers of the STOÂ’s engine cover, this design largely limits rearward visibility to the side mirrors. And before you ask, no, it doesnÂ’t have blind-spot warning.

Hybrid Lamborghini Huracan successor caught in spy photos

The Lamborghini Huracan is getting old, having launched for the 2015 model year, and the car it's based on, the Audi R8, is on its way out, too. While things like the Sterrato and STO have kept things fresh, a replacement is definitely on the way. These spy photos give us our first look at that successor, and it's got some radical features, including some amount of hybrid power. The overall silhouette of this car looks similar to the Huracan it's going to replace. It's a short, wedge-y shape with an ultra-short rear overhang. But many of the details are taken to greater extremes. The headlights are especially notable. They're a split design, with slim horizontal lamps that line up with the shut line of the hood, and down in the bumper, there are huge hexagonal lamps that almost look like they're floating in the bumper openings. Toward the back, this car loses the big intake cowls that trail from the roofline, giving it broader shoulders and a more svelte greenhouse. It also loses the big louvres over the engine bay, instead having a more open design akin to some McLarens. The exhaust now exits high out the rear bumper through a flashy hexagonal exhaust tip between the taillights. What those lights look like is unclear as they're covered by stickers of other Lamborghini lamps. The rear diffuser is huge and aggressive, too. The powertrain for the new Lamborghini is rumored to be a twin-turbo V8, rather than the Huracan's naturally aspirated V10. It will clearly have a hybrid component, as this prototype has a few high-voltage warning stickers indicating the presence of a hybrid battery and other components. Output reportedly could be as high as 850 horsepower. That's a lot, but would still leave plenty of room beneath the Revuelto flagship supercar. This prototype looks far along in development, and as we've established, the Huracan and its Audi stablemate aren't long for the world. So we would expect to see this replacement revealed in a year or so. Related video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Lamborghini's first EV will be a sports car with usable rear seats

Lamborghini's first series-produced electric car will make its debut by the end of the 2020s. We know the EV will arrive as a fourth model line, not as a battery-powered version of an existing car, and the brand revealed some of the areas it's focusing on during the design phase. Company boss Stephan Winkelmann recently confirmed the yet-unnamed EV will arrive as a grand tourer with a 2+2 seating layout, so it will bring Lamborghini back to a segment it left many decades ago. Federico Foschini, the firm's chief marketing and sales officer, revealed that the rear seats won't be merely for show: He told Motor Authority that they'll be "comfortable." Reading between the lines suggests that the EV will fill the gap between Lamborghini's two-seater super-sports cars, such as the new Revuelto flagship, and the family-friendly Urus SUV. Foschini added that two adults will be able to travel in the EV's back seats. This is fairly rare in 2023: most of the 2+2s currently on sale, including the Porsche 911, have rear seats that are best left to small kids. One of the few exceptions is the new, second-generation Maserati GranTurismo, which is surprisingly spacious for its segment. The Bentley Continental GT is also big enough to accommodate four adults. It's too early to provide technical specifications because the EV isn't scheduled to land in showrooms until 2028 at the earliest. Regardless of what the model is powered by, Foschini noted that the development team is shooting for over 300 miles of range. "This is what you need, because it's a full electric vehicle. You have no alternative range," he told Motor Authority. Note that "over 300 miles" is the best-case scenario; the executive clarified that the total number will depend on the driving mode selected, which is also true for combustion engines. More details about Lamborghini's upcoming electric model will emerge in the coming months. In the meantime, the Italian brand is preparing to electrify its entire range by 2024. The first step on this path is the aforementioned Revuelto, which uses a gasoline-electric hybrid system built around a new, 6.5-liter V12 engine. Next is the successor to the Huracan, which will reportedly use plug-in hybrid technology as well.