Is Lamborghini's shtick boring now?
By Eshan Miller
If you're an aging and miserable person like me, you might look back to the golden era of supercars. If you're from the 60s or 70s, that golden age is probably the 80s. If you're from the 80s, it is probably the 80s or 90s, and if you're from the 2000s like I am, your golden age is probably the late 90s and early 2000s. When Lamborghini had just released the Murciélago, McLaren was making a car with Mercedes. Ford had just announced the 2005 GT and Top Gear still had its iconic trio presenting.
In those simple days (if you're too young to remember), the world of supercars was a land of milk and honey. If you're reading this and you're born in the 2010s, which doesn't sound real to me at all. First, congratulations on still being interested in cars, not the white goods that seem to be clogging up our streets.
For my younger readers, try to imagine this: A world where there are very few environmental restrictions for car manufacturers, meaning 5.4 liter V8s existed... in Miata-sized Mercedes, and the S-Class still had the option of a V12. I know boring cars still existed at this point in time, but that isn't what I'm writing about. However, it is something I will be writing about, but not now. Anyway, back to reminiscing.
It wasn't just the engines that made these cars cool. For me, supercars had reached their peak in beauty, too. The aforementioned Mercedes-Mclaren SLR, the Ferrari 360 (which is a better-looking car than the f430), and the holy grail, or at least my holy grail, the Lamborghini Murciélago.
""King of the hypercars""
- Jeremy Clarkson
Well, that's all well and good, but how does any of this link to modern Lamborghini? Well, let's fast forward to 2017, a year in which Lamborghini released something so abominable, so vulgar, and so horrible it still makes me cringe to see this monstrosity getting any credit from car enthusiasts.
So what exactly is wrong with the Lamborghini Urus?
Yes, it is fast, yes it makes lots of power, and yes, it can get to 60 miles per hour in under 4 seconds. Yet, I hate it. I would go as far as to say that the Lamborghini Urus is a great summary of everything wrong with modern cars.
Maybe that's too harsh, but with the atrocities that are the G63 AMG and the BMW X6M, it was extremely disappointing to see an Italian brand known for its crazy designs become another VW product. At the end of the day, the Lamborghini Urus isn't a supercar. Instead, the Urus is a fast SUV, which these days means nothing. The Volksaudighini TouregurusSQ8 is, at the end of the day, a 2-tonne, 5-seater SUV with no charm, it's about as exciting to look at as a bowl of porridge, and it has nothing exciting about it like Lambos of old.
Just as a quick side note, Lamborghini had been a part of the VW Group at the time of the Murciélago, and yes, I know Lamborghini had released an SUV many years before the Urus. But here's the thing, if you asked someone what an SUV was in the 80s, they would say something wildly different to what an SUV is now. In the old days, SUVs were usually body on frame rugged go-anywhere, and take-the-family-with-you sort of cars, nowadays they're soft, more compact, have large alloys, and tend to look like they're melting.
The Urus is no exception to this, and I know that the Urus was nothing but a cash grab, and I know Lamborghini knows that I know that, so the once crazy Italians went back to the drawing board for their next 'crazy' idea and came up with..... another cash grab with no heart or soul.
Yes I'm talking about the 'new' Lamborghini Countach
What would happen if you took the original Countach, removed the crazy styling, and made it a reskinned Aventador? The answer is you get the 2022 Countach. It came, and it went, and honestly, who really remembers it? I forgot it existed. Again, yes, I know it was fast, and it had a solid powerplant, and for most cars, that's enough, but not for Lamborghini, and especially not for a new Countach.
What are Lamborghini anymore?
Well, they sure as heck aren't crazy or exciting anymore, and we have the Germans to thank for that. Regarding performance, they are, but brand-wise and looks-wise, they're definitely not. Well, Lambo has tried to fix this. In 2023, the Italians released the 'Revuelto,' and it has everything.... almost.
The Revuelto has a 6.5 liter V12, much like the Murciélago, with the newest addition to Lambo's lineup producing a couple hundred horsepower more than its grandfather, with a couple of electric motors taking the total power up to 1001 BHP.
There's one issue though, the Revuelto is absolutely hideous to look at. This is my whole point. Lamborghini isn't innately insane anymore, with their balanced decisions to make entry-level SUVs and reskinned classics. With all of that, it's hard for me to see the newest Revuelto as anything but a clinical, sensible performance car that has been designed to look outlandish, compared to old Lambos, which were outlandish and impractical, with no visibility, huge wings, and little attention to detail or interior features.
This sadly, for me, makes Lamborghini's whole history and heritage nothing more than a shtick in the modern era.
