The quest to build the world’s fastest SUV is a strange and deeply irrational one—like constructing the supercar with the greatest wading depth—yet it’s one that luxury manufacturers seem to be taking very seriously. Especially those within the Volkswagen Group, where this unlikely contest has become a battle royale of one-upmanship. First came the Porsche Cayenne Turbo S and its sub-8 minute lap of the Nürburgring Nordschliefe, then the Bentley Bentyaga with its fractionally faster 187 mph top speed. And now we’re facing the prospect of the Lamborghini Urus, with company CEO Stephan Winkelmann assuring us that the SUV will be the fastest in the world.
“Our car will be the first time Lamborghini has a turbocharged engine, a V-8” he told us, at the launch of the new Huracan LP580-2 in Qatar, “and it will be the fastest SUV for sure. That has been a key objective.”
Pressed on whether he meant quickest over a lap, flat-out, or with some other measure of performance, Winkelmann’s response was unequivocal: “In terms of top speed, in terms of acceleration, in terms of everything,” he said. “It has to be, it’s a Lamborghini.”
As well as confirming earlier reports that the Urus would come with a high-output turbocharged V-8—presumably a close kin to the one that powers the Cayenne Turbo—Winkelmann also dropped broad hints that it’s also likely to be the first Lamborghini with the option of a second engine, in this case a hybrid powertrain to follow later.
“We are looking into the opportunity of making the Urus the first Lamborghini ever to have [the option of] a second engine,” he told us, “it’s a big challenge to cover the life cycle of any car with one engine; with the Urus one of the obvious scenarios is hybridization.”
That’s doubly obvious since the Urus would be able to share components with Porsche’s hybrid models. Winkelmann also confirmed that a hybrid Urus would be done primarily for eco reasons. “The car we have at launch, the V-8 turbo, will be all about performance,” he told us, “the other one will be more about reduction of emissions that absolute performance, but also because packaging-wise, and power-to-weight–wise, a car like the Urus is far more suitable for let’s say a first attempt at hybridization than one of our super-sportscars.”
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