Item: Lamborghini Huracán 2014-2019
Rating: 4

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Introduced in 2014 as the successor to the beguiling Lamborghini Gallardo, the mighty Huracán (Spanish for hurricane, appropriately) supercar was – and remains – lauded for the accelerative ferocity and guttural symphony of its naturally aspirated V10.

That unit has been replaced by a turbo V8 for the new Temerario, enhancing the old ‘baby’ Lambo’s collectability no end. The time to act, you would have to imagine, is now.

The Huracán’s 10-cylinder motor is a masterpiece: Lamborghini reworked the 5.2-litre engine from the Gallardo and first-gen Audi R8, fettling its top end and exhaust system to create a blue-blooded mechanical monster.

The boffins at Sant’Agata dialled the Huracán up to 11 in a bid to fend off rivals like the McLaren 650S and Ferrari 488, squeezing out 602bhp for 0-62mph in 3.2sec and a top speed in excess of 200mph.

Awakening the Huracán is an event in itself: climb inside and settle into the imposing race-style bucket seat, uncover the F16-style starter button and fire the 10-pot into life with an almighty burst of revs.

Raw and unfettered, the Huracán’s exhaust note is an assault on the senses that rises in pitch and aggression as you climb towards an 8250rpm redline.

On song, it does an uncanny impression of a mid-2000s Formula 1 car.

Among the vast array of mechanical changes over the Gallardo, the biggest improvement was the gearbox.

Lamborghini introduced a snappy new seven-speed dual-clutch automatic to replace the languid six-speed automated manual.

Meanwhile, electromechanical steering, carbon-ceramic brakes, magnetorheological electric dampers and four-wheel drive ensured that the Huracán rode, steered and handled with the very best of them.

That said, we did have some qualms about the amount of understeer the Huracán generated, and its electronics intruded more than we would have ideally liked.

If you’re after more tail-out playfulness, the rear-driven LP580-2 is the Huracán of choice. Though it was down 30bhp, the removal of the front driveshafts made it lighter, more adjustable and, crucially, more fun.

While the 580 unlocked the Huracán’s playful side, we felt there was still more theatre to be uncorked from its chassis and drivetrain.

Step forward the bewinged Huracán Performante, a 1382kg, 630bhp missile that had reconfigured magnetic dampers, a stiffer chassis and an active aero system that reduced drag or boosted downforce at the push of a button.

In short, if you want the ultimate version of the Huracán, the Performante is it – and you’ll pay typically about £170,000, not too far off its £215,000 launch price.

Overall, the cabin was more refined than the Gallardo’s, trimmed as it was in racy carbonfibre and Alcantara.

With ultra-supportive bucket seats and large aluminium shift paddles, it was pure Lamborghini exuberance – as was the extensive list of eye-catching colours that could be added outside, although we would be wary of matt paints (see Buyer Beware, right). The highly effective 12.3in digital TFT screen was excellent too.

The Huracán is an evocative supercar that still feels almost impossibly fresh and exciting today, and considering you can have one for a fraction under £110,000, it’s one of the best value-for-money Lamborghinis you can buy.

Plus, you can no longer buy a new V10-engined car of any kind, which is good news for residuals. Less so for our eardrums.

Verdict

Model tested:

Rating: 8

Used Lamborghini Huracan 2014-2019 review

Modern, capable and supremely fast, the Huracan is a proper Lambo at heart

Good

Old-fashioned supercar noise from its V10 is still lovely

Monster performance

Terrific brakes

Bad

Safety electronics too intrusive

Understeers too much on a track

RELIABILITY

Pros

Excellent build quality

Cons

Replacement parts are expensive

Is the Lamborghini Huracan reliable?

You wil struggle to find fault with the build quality of the Huracan. Being a close relation of the Audi R8, the Ingolstadt marque clearly had a positive influence on the Lamborghini's fit and finish.

There are a number of know issues (see below) but with such a highly strung engine, you shouldn't worry about reliability. We'd recommend buying from a main dealer becuase you'll get a 12-month warranty included, which will certainly come in handy should somehting go wrong.

Engine: A rough idle could indicate issues with the camshaft sensor. It will flag an engine management light, but it’s easy to replace. If it isn’t the cam sensor, run away.

Exhaust: The exhaust tips are prone to coming loose so be sure to check they are fitted tightly and listen out for any rattling.

Body: The Huracán sits pretty low so check the underside of the front splitter for scuffs and scrapes, especially on cars without the nose lift.

A matt or lairy paint scheme might look cool but it can be expensive to repair any stone chips and scratches. Get the dealer to sort any issues with paint and look around for cars with paint protection film.

Brakes: Check them for wear, especially if they are carbon-ceramics, which are much dearer to replace.

Nose lift: Water can run from the windscreen into the drain holes, over the frame rails and then into the nose lift control module, causing it to fail.

A new control module is the only cure, but some specialists will add extra waterproofing measures around the module to prevent the issue from recurring.

Toolkit: Make sure the factory toolkit still has the device for unlocking the handbrake if you break down.

Touchscreen: The MMI screen can suffer from various glitches. It can either not work at all or reboot randomly on the move.

Make sure this is working properly when you test the car. Software updates can often sort it, but in the worst case you’ll need a new display unit, which is expensive.

An owner’s view

Gareth Jones: “I bought my Huracán Spyder in April 2024, having owned a Gallardo for a number of years. I didn’t want a flashy colour, though. I wanted something different that had more of a classic look. In the end, I bought an LP610-4 finished in a very rare colour called Grigio Antares and it looks beautiful. So far, I’ve only had to pay for a service, which cost £2000. Buying from a main dealer is the best route as you get a 12-month warranty as standard. The car is comfortable, will do 26mpg on the motorway, and sounds incredible.”

Also worth knowing

In 2019, Lamborghini rolled out the Huracán Evo, a facelifted version of the car that inherited a number of technical elements from the Performante, such as the 630bhp version of the V10. It also got active aero, a tweaked exterior design and an all-new four-wheel steering system.

This was followed by special editions such as the track-focused STO and off-road-going Sterrato.

DESIGN & STYLING

Pros

Elegant and yet still intimidating

Thunderous V10 dialled up to the max

Cons

Not as lairy as Lambos of old

Bigger and wider than its predecessor

Some described the styling of the Huracán as subdued when it first appeared at the Geneva motor show but, in the metal, it had a simple kind of elegance to it that was both refreshing and intimidating.

It was smaller in the metal, too, even though it wasn’t at 4459mm long and 1924mm wide, and as a replacement for the 11-year-old Gallardo – of which some 14,000 were made between 2003 and 2013 – it borrowed more than one or two ideas from both the existing Audi R8 and its replacement, which launched a year later.

The Huracán’s chassis was shared with the next-generation R8 and used a hybrid combination of RTN carbonfibre and aluminium, which, claimed Lamborghini, provided it with almost as much strength and stiffness as a full carbonfibre tub but with nowhere near the same expense.

It was also far easier and cheaper to repair in the event of an accident.

The engine was a development of the familiar 5.2-litre V10 that we’d come to know and love in both the R8 and the Gallardo, albeit with a raft of modifications to its top end and exhaust system.

Power was upped to a thunderous 602bhp (or 610PS, hence the LP610-4 moniker) and 413lb ft of torque, which was sufficient enough to fire the four-wheel drive Huracán to 62mph in a mere 3.2sec and to a claimed top speed of 202mph.

Stop-start became a standard fitment to help reduce emissions and improve the economy by over 10 per cent.

INTERIOR

Pros

Solidly built cabin is lavishly appointed

12.3in driver display is easy to use

Cons

Cabin a tight squeeze for taller passengers

Poor visibility

The cockpit was expensively appointed and solidly built, with esoteric styling flourishes in generous supply – most of them hexagonal in shape. The driving position was good but not perfect, with restricted leg room for longer-limbed drivers.

The instruments, meanwhile, were all liquid-crystal and housed in a 12.3in display, with several display modes on offer. You could have large, centrally positioned speedo or tacho dials, or a large navigation display.

Regrettably, there was no mode that displayed both an analogue rev counter and an analogue speedo at equal legibility and prominence, alongside a fuel gauge and a temperature gauge: it sounds arcane, but it was the one you miss.

However, having seen this same system used so amicably on the Audi TT, the configurable nature of essentially a redressed version of Audi's Virtual Cockpit made it a joy to use.

All of the infotainment was controlled through the 12.3in screen, which did take a bit of time to get used to, but was complete with sat nav, Bluetooth, DAB radio and USB connectivity.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

Pros

Smoother and more refined than the Gallardo

Monstrous V10 is rich in character – and performance

Cons

Loud bark of the exhaust won't be to everyone's taste

Exhaust note more Audi than Lamborghini

On the move, the Huracan felt far more refined but also more comfortable than the Gallardo it replaced.

There was a new level of maturity to the ride, steering response (no kickback whatsoever detectable), throttle weighting and even the exhaust note that elevated it well beyond its predecessor.

But beneath the sheen of extra smoothness and civility, there was still the raging heart of a conventional V10 supercar, thumping away, itching to be let loose.

And with 602bhp with which to propel just 1532kg of car and the benefit of four-wheel drive to maximise traction, the Huracán was properly fast.

There were no peaks or troughs to its power delivery. Instead, it just went harder in each gear with every extra rev that was added.

At 3000rpm in seventh, it pulled exceedingly well and sounded all grumbly-nasty.

At 7500rpm in third gear, it accelerated like a passenger jet just at that moment before take-off and sounded not unlike a Formula 1 car of 10 years ago, with an ear-splitting howl out of its exhaust but also a smoothness to the delivery that was entirely absent from the Gallardo.

All the fizzes and vibrations that used to send shockwaves through the chassis and into your chest and head were gone, replaced by a just as loud but far more soothing mechanical personality.

The transmission was excellent, too: fast enough in its manual mode paddle shifts to make you feel hard-wired into the driving experience by your synapses.

RIDE & HANDLING

Pros

Joy to pilot down a smooth, twisty road

Much more refined than its forebear

Cons

Safety systems a little to overzealous

A little too much understeer for our liking

The ride, handling and steering were also to tuned to deliver on refinment and smoothness.

The electro-mechanical steering, for example, featured a variable-ratio rack that, via a central ECU, monitored everything that the car was doing and delivered the perfect response to every input.

The same thing went for the magnetorheological electronic dampers, tuned to provide the best compromise between ride comfort and handling control no matter what sort of surface you happened to be driving on.

You got the distinct impression that the car’s numerous electronic systems were very much there to help out if anything went wrong.

The car felt so much less edgy and rounded in its resolve that you didn’t need the digital safety net to be anywhere near as great as it was, ironically.

But that was the way Lamborghini had to play things at the time. The vast majority of its customers – many of whom lived in China – simply weren’t interested in scaring themselves every now and again.

Instead, they wanted a car that looked beautiful, sounded amazing, was relatively easy to drive and live with every day if necessary, and wouldn’t bite their arms off if they made a mistake.

The compromise was that the Huracán probably understeered a touch more than a true purist would have wanted it to and its electronics seemed to have been set up to intrude at the slightest whiff of a slide, to the point where, on a bumpy road on which the surface isn’t perfect, it felt a bit like driving a car that was being controlled by someone else.

But in just about all other respects and, as it turned out, on most other roads, the Huracán represented a huge leap forwards for Lamborghini.

On smoother, faster, more open roads, it felt pretty damned good to drive.

With a far better gearbox than of old, excellent levels of both feel and power from its carbon-ceramic brakes and – best of all, perhaps – a pleasant, natural feel to its complicated-sounding steering rack.

VERDICT

Verdict

Model tested:

Rating: 8

Used Lamborghini Huracan 2014-2019 review

Modern, capable and supremely fast, the Huracan is a proper Lambo at heart

Good

Old-fashioned supercar noise from its V10 is still lovely

Monster performance

Terrific brakes

Bad

Safety electronics too intrusive

Understeers too much on a track

The Huracán was a more technically complex machine than its forebear, but it was also a more modern and capable car than the one it replaced, yet at the same time it was also still a proper, hairy-chested Lamborghini at heart.

Its sheer extravagance, visual antagonism and wonderful mechanical sincerity put it right up there with the very best Lamborghini's of all time.

Sam Phillips

Title: Staff Writer

Sam joined the Autocar team in summer 2024 and has been a contributor since 2021. He is tasked with writing used reviews and first drives as well as updating top 10s and evergreen content on the Autocar website.

He previously led sister-title Move Electric, which covers the entire spectrum of electric vehicles, from cars to boats – and even trucks. He is an expert in new car news, used cars, electric cars, microbility, classic cars and motorsport.

Sam graduated from Nottingham Trent University in 2021 with a BA in Journalism. In his final year he produced an in-depth feature on the automotive industry’s transition to electric cars and interviewed a number of leading experts to assess our readiness for the impending ban on the sale of petrol and diesel cars.

Matt Saunders

Title: Road test editor

As Autocar’s chief car tester and reviewer, it’s Matt’s job to ensure the quality, objectivity, relevance and rigour of the entirety of Autocar’s reviews output, as well contributing a great many detailed road tests, group tests and drive reviews himself.

Matt has been an Autocar staffer since the autumn of 2003, and has been lucky enough to work alongside some of the magazine’s best-known writers and contributors over that time. He served as staff writer, features editor, assistant editor and digital editor, before joining the road test desk in 2011.

Since then he’s driven, measured, lap-timed, figured, and reported on cars as varied as the Bugatti Veyron, Rolls-Royce Phantom, Tesla Roadster, Ariel Hipercar, Tata Nano, McLaren Senna, Renault Twizy and Toyota Mirai. Among his wider personal highlights of the job have been covering Sebastien Loeb’s record-breaking run at Pikes Peak in 2013; doing 190mph on derestricted German autobahn in a Brabus Rocket; and driving McLaren’s legendary ‘XP5’ F1 prototype. His own car is a trusty Mazda CX-5.