If you thought the regular Huracan wasn’t bonkers enough, well you’re in luck. Lamborghini has just put out the new Huracan STO. The Huracan’s evil twin racecar brother that always is good at everything. His room is littered with various trophies for sports he didn’t even want to play. That’s the Huracan STO in a nutshell. Absolutely amazing for no reason. You bring this to Cars and Coffee and all of a sudden every person within a mile radius has questions. “Was that baby blue stock?” “How much is it?” and of course the ultimate inner question that everyone is too afraid to ask… “Why? Why would you buy such a thing?” Well to answer your question, cause it’s awesome. The STO brings Lamborghini’s racetrack heritage to the modern day vehicle. It’s no Diablo or Countach— it’s much more tame and civilized. That’s what makes this in our opinion one of the best Lamborghinis yet. This is a solid alternative to the regular Huracan. It’s not totally unusable, its an actual supercar, not treading hyper and racecar territory.
Albeit, Lamborghini didn’t give the STO treatment to its flagship V12 supercar, the Aventador, the Huracan is not something to complain about. Featuring the touted rear engined V10 that has been famed for so long, it’s only natural that it just gets even more ridiculous. Spewing out nearly 640 tuned horsepower, 30 more than the base Huracan, the madness just keeps on building. Like Alice in Wonderland this keeps making any car lover’s jaw drop and eyes widen. 0-60 gets done faster than you can say più veloce… in nearly 3 seconds. The ultimate Lamborghini just keeps getting better and better. Lamborghini’s reluctance to use forced induction helps its case even more. The naturally aspirated roar allows the Huracan to maintain instant throttle control without switching to a smaller engine. The V10 stays and Lamborghini has no intentions of changing that.
Take a Look at Our Original Huracan Review!
The exhaust also gets a special treatment. This time two catalytic converters are used with the Lambda treatment. Hi-flow cats are swapped in instead of the normal ones. The mufflers also let most sound through and are more useless than the turn signals on a BMW— that’s a good thing. In addition nearly everything is lightened. 75% of the exterior parts of the Lamborghini are carbon fiber so I wouldn’t be surprised if this took off in the wind. The entire car is lighter than 3,000 lbs… a staggering figure for such a brutish vehicle. A V10 in a car lighter than most V8s, now that’s something to be scared by.
In fact, the entire car gets a lightweight makeover. The hood is now in one piece, the bonnet and fenders also are conjoined. Like mentioned, the vast majority of the car is now carbon fiber. The interior is stripped of any unnecessary parts and put down to the bare minimum. Only what you need is what remains. The lower chassis is also made of carbon fiber for the most lightweight Lamborghini yet. Lamborghini themselves puts it, “Every aspect of the Huracán STO draws on the aerodynamic efficiency and lightweight technologies demanded in motorsports. The Huracán STO embodies the principle that Lamborghini design always follows function: even more valid for a street-homologated car inspired by a racecar. The Huracán STO is the result of the collaboration between Lamborghini’s R&D, Squadra Corse and Centro Stile departments, with every line and every feature aesthetically outstanding while optimized to ensure the best driving performance.”
Derived straight from the racecar that won the 24 Hours at Daytona 3 times, the STO gets a aerodynamic facelift too. In addition to the plethora of lightweight elements the bull needs a aero jacket to match. So the engineers in Italy got to work. For starters they brought in a “shark fin” on the rear hood. The fin improves the dynamic abilities of the STO, particularly when cornering: in such conditions the incoming airflow has a yaw angle, and the different pressure levels generated by the two sides of the fin create a positive effect on yaw stability. The fin also helps straighten airflow onto the wing, increasing wing efficiency during cornering. Taking aircraft technology and putting it on a supercar isn’t exactly found on a Toyota, but here we are. Cornering and handling were a priority for Lamborghini. They tightened up the steering, dropped the suspension, and tuned the ECU on its stability and traction control in order to give drivers the most pure driving experience that is humanely possible. The rear fenders also feature new NACA air intakes that provide passive cooling to the engine when on the track or at high speeds. Lamborghini understands that on the track the engine will be at higher revs than highway gear ratios so the ducts help provide additional cooling to the engine when it gets super hot. As an accomplice to the air intakes the rear hood has been fitted with a large air scoop to drag in more air for cooling when possible. Air deflectors fitted inside the scoop help direct the air to the most needed sectors of the engine.
Brake ducts on the front and side of the STO help provide cooling to the massive 20″ wheels all the way around. Introduced new on the STO are the dual piston CCM-R brakes unveiled by Lamborghini 3 years ago on their racecars. Wrapped on Pirelli P1 tires, the STO doesn’t skimp on any part of the car for the best drivers’ super car. Going back to the brakes, the CCM-R brakes also have roots in F1 where the CCM-R system was proven to improve stress resistance by 60%, with maximum brake power improved by 25% and longitudinal deceleration by 7%. Rear wheel steering is also standard, as well as torque vectoring— all crucial on the racetrack.
Lamborghini also takes a shot at introducing 3 new driving modes, focusing on high intensity driving environments. STO, Trofeo, and Pioggia. STO is the hallmark high performance mode, enabling everything you may need while switching off anything you won’t like traction control. Trofeo is a serious track mode, Trofeo assures maximum performance through dedicated torque vectoring and performance traction control strategies for both straight sprints. While Pioggia is the rain mode, something that isn’t available on all other Lamborghinis.
While all that is great, the looks of the STO are just downright menacing. The enormous road presence of the STO just goes to show how much of a racecar it is. Sharp lines with a purpose and beautiful curves make the STO one of the most gorgeous Lamborghinis yet. Every line is meant to be there, no wasted design elements yet nothing left on the table. Everything is handcrafted and designed to perform on the largest stages. Lamborghini’s rendition of the classic Gulf Blue (called Blu Laufey) itself is prepossessing, yet Lamborghini assures you any color you choose will be available with its custom color program.
On the interior, everything is carbon fiber or Alcantara. The infotainment screen also astounds at this level of car and performance. While most automakers would just slash and nix the system, Lamborghini found a way to make it lightweight yet useful at the same time. Don’t believe me? Hear it from themselves, “New Human Machine Interface (HMI) graphics feature on the Huracán’s touch screen, which manages the car’s functions including drive mode indicator, the LDVI system, tire pressures and brake temperatures. A fully connected telemetry system allows pilots driving their Huracán STO on racetracks to monitor and record their performance and to analyze the data via the Lamborghini UNICA app.” You can check your telemetry onboard the STO as well as you get a reverse camera. A reverse camera… on a race car. You can see your opponents getting gapped and their face in awe as you pull away.
The interior is quite nice for a super sports car. Yet it continues to hang on to the racing tradition. A trunk crafted especially for helmet storage, carbon fiber floormats, and CF lightweight door handles and straps for interior door releases complete the racecar look. A four-point seatbelt is also standard with a racing seat/harness.
The Lamborghini Huracan STO is one of the most jaw dropping cars of 2021. Putting together a SUPER sports car from an already super car is something only Lamborghini could do. Putting a full-blown racecar on the street? Now that’s something special. The pricing surprisingly isn’t even that bad. Starting at $327,838, that’s still nearly $150,000 less than a new Aventador. For the highest trim of an entry level supercar, it certainly is something to gawk at, and I can’t take my eyes off of it.
MPH Talk 