Lamborghini Huracan LP610-4 UK first drive

There’s a lot that’s promising about the Lamborghini Huracán, as you know from our first drive of the supercar on continental roads.

It retains a 5.2-litre V10, like the Gallardo before it and, crucially, natural aspiration. The engine’s top end, particularly, has been heavily revised, putting the power output up to 601bhp, achieved at 8250rpm.

Maximum torque, 413lb ft of it, isn’t made until 6500rpm, which means the Huracán will want revving, likely to be facilitated by the fact that it comes with a dual-clutch transmission instead of a clunky monoclutch robotised manual. There’s no conventional manual this time because, of the 14,000 Gallardos that were sold, only around 300 were ever ordered with a clutch pedal. Pity. I drove one. It was good.

Anyway, it’s the same twin-clutch unit that the Audi R8 uses, which is appropriate because from next year the R8 will share the Lamborghini’s part-aluminium, part-carbonfibre architecture. Like the Audi, the Lamborghini comes with adaptive magnetorheological dampers, albeit they’re optional here. Also on the options list is variable ratio electrically assisted steering, which is quicker at lower speeds than higher. Our test car came with both options.

Standard, seemingly, is a cabin decorated with Lamborghini’s (relatively recently adopted) flamboyance; as is a generally splendid cabin finish, albeit with a few iffy plastics.

There’s a near-square steering wheel, overburdened with buttons, although this does, I suppose, free space behind it for large, fixed paddles. The paddles, powder-coated aluminium or some such, are good, while the indicator and wiper buttons are more intuitive than those on a Ferrari.

Lamborghini’s ‘anima’ switch, the equivalent of Ferrari’s steering wheel ‘manettino’ (which adjusts throttle response, steering weight and dampers from road through sport to race modes), is too easy to knock into a different setting while you’re turning the wheel.

It might not be, however, if the wheel were just round so you knew where the rim would be. Ditto, of course, if the button were simply elsewhere. Then, too, it might not seem as though Ferrari has been benchmarked in a slightly un-Lamborghini way.

Also Ferrari-esque is the electrically assisted steering’s lightness at low speeds, and its two-turns-between-locks quickness. I’m not sure if that’s a result of benchmarking (if so, a McLaren 650S would have been a better reference), but it makes the four-wheel-drive Lamborghini agile at first, if a touch disconnected. It’s joined by a ride that is firm but not brittle – at least in the damper’s soft mode.

Up the speed, and the steering assumes a little more weight, a little less keenness, but decent accuracy and good eye for the straight-ahead.

There’s a fair degree of road noise, and a lot of mechanical engine clatter – although neither is unwelcome in a hard-edged supercar – but thanks to a powerful stereo and an 80-litre fuel tank, the Huracán makes a surprisingly accomplished daily driver. Not as much as a McLaren 650S, but still, Lamborghini admits it’s attempting to broaden the Huracán’s remit over the Gallardo. It has.