Interesting chat last night with a confident Stephan Winkelmann, who was preparing to perform the official unveiling of the new Lamborghini Huracán LP580-2 (even though it had been released a few hours earlier).
Our impromptu five-minute interview segment was all running smoothly enough. Yes, he said, there would be more rear-wheel-drive versions of the Huracán to follow. Yes, he acknowledged, there is scope for higher-end editions of the car and more extreme versions. Yes, the rear-drive LP580-2 is designed for some younger buyers and older enthusiasts who don’t want a four-wheel-drive supercar - but that technology will remain, because it’s considered a Lamborghini Unique Selling Proposition.
And then I asked if there are plans to have an even cheaper, rear-drive and manual-gearbox version of the Huracán, as there was with the Gallardo. “No,” said Winkelmann. “There are technical reasons why we cannot do a manual, but there is also no feedback from customers really wanting this either.”
This seemed an important point, so I pressed him further. “I can say now,” he stated, “there will not be a manual Huracán.”
I find this a little sad - not only for what it tells us about supercar customers these days, but also because it seems that a bit of Lamborghini’s edge is being rubbed off. Winkelmann went on to make his presentation, labelling the LP580-2 as the Huracán that’s ‘Fun To Drive’ (makes me wonder what the other two versions are for). But it’s a genuinely sad day when there aren’t enough enthusiasts asking for three pedals as well as just two driven wheels, isn’t it?
I am definitely not one of the finest drift merchants on the Autocar staff list, but when I had an LP610-4 Huracán for an evening a few months back, I was blown away by its performance but left slightly underwhelmed by its generosity - which is to say that there was a bit too much of it. The market for supercars probably dictates that Lamborghini needs to make more civilised, usable, friendly supercars. But I reckon at least one Lambo Huracán should be a bit hairy, force the driver to work really hard and yes, potentially, master the gear shifts for themselves.
Right now, it feels like Lambo’s product line-up is being painted purely by numbers - and the avoidance of that approach thus far is what has made the brand so inspiring. Is anyone else troubled by that?
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It's a chicken and egg thing;
Perhaps if certain manufacturers marketed it properly there would be enough support that it paid for itself. Ignoring 10ths of seconds benefits that dual clutch autos bring that is so irrelevant for road use.
I think Ferrari road cars are too intrinsically linked with F1 that they have to have flappy paddles, but surely Lamborghini are not so encumbered? The only supercar I've ever driven is a manual Gallardo and what a mighty thing it was, perhaps Lambo's core customer base has changed buying recognition in the last decade?
I simply don't believe there
I think the problem is that almost all the incremental sales Lamborghini etc have picked up around the world in the last 20 odd years are, with the best will in the world, to customers who don't deeply care.
Only Porsche seems to have come back from the brink on this.
Lamborghini needs to remember that mad, bad and crazy, which it should own, doesn't equate to fake blips, CO2 and lap times.
As a kid i had a Lambo poster
grew up and grew out of supercars......