A RECKLESS DEVELOPMENT?

Farewell, V10, this is the new Lamborghini Temerario, a 907bhp V8 hybrid. A worthy Huracán successor, or a misstep from the Italian firm?

- VIJAY PATINI

How best to follow up one of the most successful Lamborghini supercars ever built? Ditch its key USP. Make it more... comfortable. Spin the Random Fighting Bull Name Generator wheel.

This is the follow up to the Huracán: welcome to the new Lamborghini Temerario, a car that replaces the transcendental, nat-asp V10 for [shudders] a battery, three electric motors and a turbo V8. It’s also a car that claims a new found focus on comfort.

Perhaps it should have been named The Tempest, because swapping one of the finest free breathing V10s of the modern age for a hybrid V8 and more comfort suggests hell truly is empty, and all the devils are here. At least if you’re a Lamborghini enthusiast.

One of whom is the boss, of course. “The Revuelto is a big success,” Stephan Winkelmann says. “We have three years of orders in house. The fact it’s a plug-in hybrid is very much accepted.” He points to this new Temerario – that follows the Urus SE V8 hybrid – as “closing the circle of hybridising all the line-up”.

Of course, the V10 was the stuff that dreams were made of. “I have to admit I loved the car because of the engine,” he says about the Huracán’s banshee wail 5.2-litre that originally started its service in 2003’s Gallardo (another hugely popular Lambo). So why ditch one of its key USPs, especially now the Audi R8 has departed leaving the 10-cylinder all to Lambo’s bullfighting hands and, as Winkelmann admits, having already done an outstanding job?

“We had to decide years ago, from scratch, to do something exceptional, completely new,” he adds, noting how the Temerario’s ambitions for outright power wouldn’t have “been feasible” with the old nat-asp V10.