Lamborghini Huracan to Paris: PH Blog

Plane, train or automobile to the Paris show? #Chickenarms chooses the latter, with a V10 engine

I'd like to say that I played the fact I got offered a Lamborghini Huracan to drive to Paris for the Mondial de l'Automobile with humility and coolness. I didn't. This, perhaps more than laps of Ascari Race Resort, was a chance to find out if it is actually A Proper Supercar.

Journey commenced with a brew at the Ace Cafe

I knew the reality would be an obedient cruise along heavily policed peage followed by a potentially nail-biting crawl through Parisian traffic. Rather than some decadent 200mph blast across France for champagne and caviar in a posh hotel. But if you can't muster a bit of childish glee at the idea of driving a Lamborghini to one of the world's more glamorous capital cities you don't, in my book, deserve to be offered the opportunity.

Anyway, according to a YouTube 'bro' I'm too puny to really push a Lamborghini the way it ought to be pushed on track so this would seem a more appropriate test of the car for someone of my apparently feeble physique.

Certainly if the launch proved anything it was that Lamborghini's design brief for the Huracan was more about mooching about and turning heads in fashionable cityscapes than enjoying the ragged edge on racetracks. The hateful variable ratio 'dynamic' steering has been much discussed in all reviews of the car, the inability of the virtually reproduced rev counter to keep pace with the V10's actual revolutions also hindering its ability to be enjoyed on the ragged edge. On this drive, however, light steering, easily readable nav and the ability to drive over Parisian cobbles with all teeth and vertebrae intact would be more important than dynamic ability in the final few tenths of the performance envelope.

In one end...

For all the talk of growing up and getting Audified the Huracan did a pretty convincing impression of being a bit stroppy and Italian in the first few miles. Indeed, I'd barely got going before I got warning messages for the four-wheel drive system, suspension and then apparently inoperative ESP. Not long after a single tug of the downshift paddle saw the car blockshift from fifth to first and come to a near halt in the middle of a dual carriageway. Not ideal.

Suspension, throttle response and steering backed off to Strada mode via the 'ANIMA' switch on the wheel, Doppia Frizione gearbox in auto and sluggish rev counter replaced by full screen nav in the instrument binnacle I attempted to put these niggles to the back of my mind as I cruised around the M25 and towards the Chunnel. Some have complained about the seats in the Huracan but even with a classically Italian driving position and ear splitting tyre roar on the concrete sections of the M20 the Huracan lolloped along rather nicely.

...and out the other!

It's comfy. The multi-configurable display - shared with the TT and, doubtless, many more VW group cars to follow - works really well and does a good job of tidying up the cabin. The direct-injected thrum and gnashing of valve gear from behind your head isn't exactly evocative, the discerning Huracan driver soon learning that for crowd pleasing V10 howl and spirited exhaust crackling to entertain iPhone wielding fellow motorists you really need to be in at least Sport or possibly Corsa mode. With the parallel injection system augmenting fuel supply with a more traditional squirt into the ports and the little sneezes on the more violent manually requested shifts a more exuberant Huracan is easily accessible via that mode switch on the wheel. Before reverting to Strada and continuing on your way.

Shortly before the tunnel I brimmed the tank and stocked up on Volvic and Fizzy Pigs to augment the Flexiplus goodie bag, reckoning this should equip both car and driver for the 200-odd miles to Paris.

In theory possible in an hour and a bit...

Emerging onto deserted and beautifully smooth early morning peage I soon realised the biggest test of the journey ahead would be my own self control. The curious Italian plates/RHD combo of Lamborghini UK's press demo had already caught the eye of customs as I left Folkstone and there's no such thing as keeping a low profile in a Huracan, matt black or not. No matter, aforementioned Fizzy Pigs, some 6Music downloads on my phone and a cruise controlled 130km/h would see me through. Only there didn't seem to be cruise control. Damn.

Back in the day an empty road to Paris at 6am, a full tank of fuel and a Lamborghini would have been the stuff of dreams. Especially with long stretches of the A1 adjacent to the TGV/Eurostar and 200mph trains to race against. We all know the reality now though and even when a chap in a 599 drew up alongside it was resigned shrugs rather than the literal red rag to a bull it should have been. Sad times. But the right decision, having just witnessed a fellow motorist having euros extracted by les undercover flics when I paused for a comfort break.

Valets seemed keen to leave it out front...

On the smoother French tarmac the Huracan proved surprisingly refined, the Strada suspension setting supple and comfy and the muted throttle response aiding the attempt to stay the right side of the law. A spine thumping ride and kick to the kidneys on gearshifts is there in Corsa mode if you want it but it's revealing of the new car's brief that the Huracan's most extreme mode more or less corresponds to the baseline setting of an Aventador or Gallardo. Do you want that in a Lamborghini though? Discuss, but as the 911 Turbo creeps ever closer in performance and price and the R8 and McLaren 12C/650S promote the idea of the daily supercar it's clear even Lamborghini feels the pressure to be accommodating.

And by the time I was embedded in Paris traffic, a litre of Volvic eager to make its escape and the speediest route to the hotel urgently required, I was more interested in things like visibility, navigation legibility and stress reducing comfort than the traditional self flagellating supercar experience. Even here I couldn't reconcile myself to that steering though, the assistance and gearing feeling entirely false and inconsistent. The 458 proves you can do a fast rack and city-friendly weighting to the wheel without compromising agility and feel; we badly need to try a Huracan with the standard fixed-ratio rack and live in hope this deals with the main dynamic flaw in an otherwise impressively rounded package.

Does look the biz in the dawn Parisian light

Destination reached, tanks drained and the hotel valets considerately parking the Huracan bang outside the hotel's main entrance I enjoyed a few minutes of vicarious Lambo watching from within the foyer. Even surrounded by the glamorous and the gorgeous, even in the midst of Paris fashion week and even stationary in downplayed matt black the Huracan passes the supercar test of stopped tracks, selfies from passing pedestrians and sufficient kudos for a posh Parisian hotel to keep it parked on the doorstep for two days straight.

For the purposes of this trip and given the reality of how many people actually use such vehicles the Huracan nails it. Whether it's still a proper supercar by the definition laid down by Lamborghini itself is another question entirely.

Dan

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