2019 Lamborghini Urus first drive:Loaded for bear

 A very cool Lamborghini gets a very unfortunate name

What the heck is a Urus? Sounds like a bear constellation in the Big Dipper, or some kind of… tract infection. Technically Urus refers to an extinct species of wild cattle that once inhabited Europe. Really, Lambo? You couldn’t come up with anything better than that? I can do better than that off the top of my jet-lagged head: How about, “The Stomper,” “The Badger,” or “The Squealing Weasel?” Any of those would be better than Urus. The irony is that Urus is just another name for Aurochs, which sounds better and at least capable of four-wheel drive. We should be thankful Lamborghini isn’t a North American company or we’d have Brahma, Angus and Hereford for names. But Lamborghinis apparently have to be named after European bulls, so you get: an extinct species of wild cattle.
It’s too bad because the Urus is an extraordinary vehicle, by the standards of SUVs or even by the standards of generic supercars. On the track, it feels as fast as anything with four wheels and two seats, even though the Urus can seat as many as five. On the road, I could easily see living with this every day and hauling carpools or groceries with equal aplomb. There’s even room in the back seats for tall-torsoed adults. And it goes off-road –- a little. I’d love to take it skiing in some snow-covered mountains somewhere, maybe the Italian Dolomites. The only drawback (apart from that name) is the starting sticker price: $200,000 here in the U.S. Not even $199,995.
But you’ve got that much cash laying around, right? Let’s take a look what kind of Lamborghini SUV you’d get for it.

The Urus is supposed to carry styling cues from the Countach and Aventador

It’d be easy to say that this is just Lamborghini’s variant of the Volkswagen MLB EVO platform. That’d be correct, but only up to a certain point. It does share some componentry with the Audi Q7, Porsche Cayenne and even the margins-stomping Bentley Bentayga. But each of those has managed to carve out an identity all its own, as will the Urus.
The one chassis section they all share is the body structure from the windshield to the front wheels. That’s so they can all use some version of the 4.0-liter Audi twin-turbo V8, or in the case of the Bentley, a W12. The rest of the big brute ute is more unique than shared. The Urus’ chassis is a combination of steel and aluminum, with the floorpan being all high-strength steel. Lamborghini said the Urus’ front axle with aluminum subframe and suspension-strut support includes specially designed pivot bearings and wishbone structure while the rear axle with optimized subframe features aluminum and steel construction. The engine and transmission mounts are all Lamborghini’s design, said chief engineer Maurizio Reggiani, made to reduce the amount of vibration the engine transfers to the body. This ain’t no shaker hood.

The Urus' 4.0-liter twin turbo V8 makes 641 hp and 627 lb ft of torque

Which is not to say it won’t make power. Lots of power. Lamborghini’s version of the V8 makes 641 hp and 627 lb-ft of torque. It shares the block, the oil pan and a few other parts with its stablemates, but it has its own twin-scroll turbos, cylinder heads, runners and powertrain calibration.
“The calibration is what took the most time,” Reggiani said.
The engine is mated to an eight-speed torque converter ZF automatic transmission “completely specific for Lamborghini.” The four-wheel-drive system consists of an integrated front differential, Torsen center differential and an active torque-vectoring rear.
All of the above will launch you to 62 mph in just 3.6 seconds, which is remarkable for a 4844-pound SUV. Top speed is listed at 190 mph. Stopping all that mass is up to remarkable (though sometimes squeaky) carbon-ceramic brakes with six-piston calipers rear and 10-piston calipers front. Yes, this thing has 10-piston brake calipers. That setup brings it from 62 mph to 0 in 111 feet.
The first time I got to try any of this out was not in some safe and sanguine stop-and-go traffic in some bland anonymous suburban blah blah. No, it was on no less a surface than the Autodromo Vallelunga Piero Taruffi, former home of the Rome Grand Prix and the track that boasted the first win by a Ferrari in 1947. The track has hosted Grands Prix, Formula Two and Formula Three, as well as World Superbikes. It's like driving in the automotive equivalent of the Vatican.

The Urus handles remarkably well on track

Right out of the pits, it's obvious this is no floppy/ordinary Tahoe/Suburban/Explorer kind of SUV. The Urus feels like a sports car, albeit one with higher seating. The drivetrain is amazing: powerful and taut, no slip anywhere, even though for my first laps I set the Tamburo selector in Strada, or street drive mode. Just step on the gas and go. Shifts come smooth and fast and the relatively large 'ute doesn't flop around in turns -- in fact, it doesn't feel like it's rolling at all. The stability assist from the rear-wheel steering is tangible, not unlike the four-wheel steer stability I’d felt only a short while ago driving a Ferrari GTC4Lusso T, which is not listed as an SUV.
After a few of those laps, I switched to sport mode and the Urus was even better, with quicker shifts, louder exhaust and stiffer dampers. The surface of Vallelunga is as smooth as one of those big wooden pizza spatulas, so that helped, but there's no suggestion of looseness from any part of the Urus.
On the last session, I put it in Corsa, or track mode and it cranks the performance up to maximum, with power that smooshes you back in the seat and shifts that softly but firmly bang up and down the gears. I shifted myself with the paddles at first but after a while I just let the transmission algorithm do the work. It anticipates what you need and then does it.
On track, the Urus doesn’t feel like an SUV except, as I said, you're seated higher. I had just the week before spent a day driving through the Santa Monica Mountains above Malibu in the new Aventador S Roadster (yes, it is a tough life) and I can honestly say that I was more comfortable and just about as quick in the Urus. At a curb weight of 4,844 pounds, the Urus has a weight-to-power ratio of 7.4 pounds per hp, which is, indeed, supercar territory.

Urus does the dirt, but not really well.

Off-road, the Urus is less impressive. The Urus’ air bag suspension can change ride height from 6.2 to 9.8 inches. There is a drive mode called Terra which is supposed to stand for gravel, but while trying to powerslide the raging bull along a graded course outside the Vallelungan pavement, Terra shut everything down almost immediately and all I could do was sort of limp through the corners. This, despite the fact that the Urii on the dirt course had Pirelli Scorpions instead of the road course Urii’s Pirelli Corsas. And even with the fact that the torque vectoring could send up to 75 percent of torque to the outside wheel, the bull just wasn’t fun in the dirt.
At least I didn’t have fun in the two laps I got. The Italian instructor in the passenger seat said to add the power at the end of the turn and then you could get some wheelspin. So I tried that and you could, but not enough to have actual “fun.” Later, he did a lap with me in the passenger seat and he was better at getting the thing around the course by, indeed, hitting the gas at the exit of the turn. Bottom line: The Urus is generally no fun as a rally car. Unless you can maybe switch everything off and just wail, but in the brief interlude that I was on the dirt, I was not sure you could do even that. Plus, rocks kept accumulating in the brake calipers and rattling around. Maybe it would be more fun in snow, but alas, it was 74 degrees out.

Urus does well in suburbia

Lastly, I and an Italian journalist from Turin who spoke about as much English as I spoke Italian took a Urus out for a lap of Lago di Bracciano, a tourist draw the road around which was packed with Roman weekenders who were in no hurry to get anywhere. Non importa -- the Urus proved itself to be a perfectly comfortable low-speed cruiser. As I said, it could easily be a daily driver for a fairly boring suburban day-after-day existence. And if it just so happens that you live near a race track, well, you could have fun there, too.
What about the rest of its VW Group stablemates? Having driven all of them at one time or another, I would say the Urus gets the prize as the “best.” But Bentley just came out with a V8 version of its Bentayga SUV that's thoroughly impressive. And you can’t discount the Cayenne either. Audi's Q7/Q8 has verve. And I liked the Toureg last time I drove one, too, but that's gone from the U.S. market. But for a balance of on-track performance combined with daily driving drudgery, the Urus wins. Evviva!*
*Yay!

On Sale: Now

Base Price: $200,000

Powertrain: 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8, 8-speed automatic, awd

Output: 641 hp at 6000 rpm, 627 lb-ft at 2250-4500 rpm

Curb Weight: 4,844 pounds (mfg.)

0-60 MPH: 3.6 seconds (mfg.)

Pros: Fast on track, strong like bull

Cons: A little awkward off road