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2020 Lamborghini Urus Road Test | How many bags of steer manure can it haul?

The question posed in the headline probably got your attention, as a headline should. You might also be wondering how many wet, muddy golden retrievers the 2020 Lamborghini Urus can carry home from a swim. Or how many seat-kicking Girl Scouts will drop their ice cream cones as you fling them around in your Urus on their way to a field trip. Or how many board-feet you can load while on a Lamborghini lumber run to Home Depot. And the answer to all of the above is: Beats me. If you think I tried any of that in a car with a $200,000 base price — $270,000 as tested — then youÂ’d be almost as nuts as me if I had. Most of those activities were probably specifically forbidden in the fine print of the 18-page loan agreement anyway. Yes, the Lamborghini Urus is an SUV. (ItÂ’s pronounced “Ooh-rous,” by the way.) No, it is not that kind of SUV, the kind that has “utility” as its middle name. Nobody who buys this is going to get it anywhere close to fertilizer, mud, ice cream or splinters. Nobody is cross-shopping the Urus against a Highlander or Explorer. It is, instead, an extreme expression of the quest for more power, more luxury, and the craze for crossovers. Auto brands, as they are wont to do, are building the high-riding vehicles that people want, which happen to be vastly profitable. Ne plus ultra brands such as Rolls-Royce, Bentley and Lamborghini are not immune to that lure, and so they are now offering SUVs with arch luxury, uber performance and the most hoity brand cachet. Just wait until the Ferrari Purosangue hits the streets. And sure enough, the SUV formula works for the high rollers, too. Lamborghini sold more than 8,200 vehicles worldwide last year, an annual increase of 43%. And thatÂ’s because 5,000 of them were the Urus. The window sticker says 70% of the carÂ’s content is from Germany — put another way, itÂ’s mostly an Audi. But the 30% that is Lamborghini is what makes its base price nearly three times the $68,200 base price of the mechanically related Audi Q8.  When the opportunity arose to drive a Urus for a weekend, I puzzled over what exactly to do with it. With more lowly SUVs or trucks in the press fleet, auto writers typically load and haul their families and stuff to see how well the utility vehicle in question does its job in everyday life. But thatÂ’s not possible with the Urus. You canÂ’t in good conscience get the thing dirty, or risk a scuff or scratch.

Lamborghini Huracan does quarter mile in just 8.6 seconds

If you're the wild and crazy sort that feels the need to up the output of an Italian exotic, more power to you. And one of the best ways to get that power is through turbocharging. Lots and lots of turbocharging. Just like Heffner Performance has done with this monstrous Huracan. By strapping a pair of turbochargers to the Lamborghini's V10 engine, Heffner's modded car is good for 1,200 horsepower at the wheels. If you don't feel like doing the math on what that is at the crank, just rest easy in knowing that it's a whole helluva lot. While you probably won't want to try and put that power down on a road course, it's absolutely appropriate on a drag-prepped surface. Combined with the super-sticky strip and some equally grippy tires, Heffner has turned in some impressive, sub-ten-second times. But its most impressive run is this – an 8.631-second run through the quarter, where the green Huracan hit 173 miles per hour. According to the results slip, it snapped to 60 in just 1.9 seconds, while Heffner claims it hit 100 in 3.7 seconds. So yeah, this is a very, very fast Lamborghini. And now, you can watch it in action. Check out the high-speed run at the top. Related Video:

Lamborghini CEO says Urus headed to production

It's only a matter of time before Lamborghini is cleared to start producing the Urus sport utility vehicle, and, according to CEO Stephan Winkelmann, that time is expected to be soon, The Detroit News reports.
"We're going low profile now," Winkelmann says. "I can't tell you much on details now, but when we get close to the launch, we will have more." The CEO reportedly said earlier this year that the Urus would start production in 2017, which was backed up by earlier statements made by parent company Audi's CEO, Rupert Stadler, who told Autocar, "Lamborghini has to do it. Because of the need to dovetail into production cycles, we should see the Urus in 2017."
Lamborghini delayed production of the Urus a year ago due to Europe's economic climate while continuing to develop the SUV. But since then China, one of Lamborghini's largest emerging markets, has exhibited a slowdown of high-end luxury item purchases. Winkelmann now reportedly says the biggest opportunities are in "Japan, the Middle East and especially the US."