Practical test: Lamborghini Huracán STO
Raging temptation
Lamborghini Huracan STO
© press-inform – the press office
Too bad. Lamborghini says goodbye to its Huracan, which brought so much joy to many sports car fans all over the world for years with the sportiest of all models. We take the Lamborghini Huracan STO on an atmospheric farewell tour from Monterey via the Californian Bay Area to Napa Valley and back to San Francisco.
There are cars where the color simply doesn’t matter because they cause a stir everywhere. These are mostly small series manufacturers with their spectacular cars, one or two Ferrari racetrack models or this very special one Lamborghini Huracan. As if this wild two-seater with race track qualities wasn’t spectacular enough, the STO variant puts a wildly flashing crown on its head. It doesn’t matter that this version is presented in an almost innocent white, because the design details and blue body elements make this racing car look almost shameless for the road. If you still want a Huracan or even dream of the racing version of the STO, you have to come up with something. Production of the athlete from Santa Agata is sold out and the factory and dealers are slowly preparing for the successor. It is scheduled to premiere in the first half of 2024 and roll out by the end of the year. Until then, we’ll just keep dreaming about the STO.
Of course, the Lamborghini Huracan, which is just 1.22 meters flat, is a racing machine, a weapon that packs a punch, especially as a re-sharpened STO. In addition to the Huracan’s impressive basic package, this is ensured by the noticeable influence of the sports car manufacturer’s racing department, which is what made the Huracan an STO in the first place. STO stands for Super Trofeo Omologata. That means as little to Americans as it does to most car fans in our part of the world; But it sounds good and means that this car doesn’t have to shy away from any comparison on the racetrack. It is surprising how many people recognize the Huracan STO as such in Californian traffic. It could have been a coincidence at the gas station in Monterey, but even in car-crazy Pebble Beach, cameras or smartphones are pulled out on every street corner and even on the spectacular 17 Miles Drive, the stone and dune formations worth seeing are suddenly of only marginal interest. When car fans ask if they can take photos of the white flounder at traffic lights in San Francisco or near Oakland in a Walgreens parking lot, the whole thing becomes quite strange. A car-loving couple wants to showcase the perfectly contoured sports chairs and the starter button. It is located in the center console under a red flap. Okay – there are probably experts at work here.
You will hardly see the sportiest of all Huracan models on the road. Many models are parked in collections; others might take a detour to the Gentlemen Drive event in Spa or Laguna Seca. To outdo all the others here, the Flounder offers rear-wheel drive, weighing less than 1.4 tons, significantly less than the impressively dynamic Huracan Performante and an aerodynamic package that takes your breath away even when it’s stationary. On the road, the mid-engine sports car presents itself as an incredible driving machine with razor-sharp steering that redefines turn-in behavior and a driving precision that can hardly be found anywhere else. When accelerating hard, the agility and traction are equally enchanting. The noticeable reductions in suspension comfort hurt on the sometimes broken highways around San Francisco and when you head north from Oakland to the warmer climes of America’s number one wine-growing region. After long stretches of highway, the small, winding streets of Napa Valley become an ideal setting to celebrate the dynamism of the northern Italian with the charismatic V10 naturally aspirated engine.
That the 4.55 meter long body is largely made of carbon fiber, details such as the windshield have been slimmed down and instead of the rear window a carbon hood covers the 470 kW / 640 hp vacuum cleaner; It’s all part of that unique feeling on the road. The power-to-weight ratio is just over two kilograms per horsepower. If that doesn’t mean much to you, just try it once when the Huracan STO, which costs almost 300,000 euros, shoots up the next curvy chain of hills, the ten-cylinder starts to roar beyond 6,000 rpm and you have to be afraid that the grapes will split from fear and sound vibrations loosen the bagged vine. The absolute speeds are less impressive than expected and so the driver does not have to worry about the position of the manually adjustable rear wing. The downforce doesn’t play a role and you get used to the driving behavior of the racer with its weight distribution of 41:59 surprisingly quickly. If you want, you can push the STO over the 100 km/h mark from a standstill in three seconds and let it drive up to 310 km/h in the wild. This makes it noticeably slower than other Huracan versions that are close to the 330 mark. But the Lamborghini Huracan STO is something for the race track and here the top speed is of little importance. Simply magnificent: the high-performance brake, which neither reaches the limits of its performance in everyday life nor on the racetrack and which competes internally with the steering for the best individual category.
No need to think about changing the driving modes on the non-slip leather steering wheel, because you’re usually ideal on the road in the basic mode called STO. The sharper driving programs are reserved for closed slopes and race tracks, because things get hotter here. What works well on the straight stretches and highways reaches its limits here north of the always cool Bay Arena. The STO likes to select a gear of the seven-speed dual clutch transmission that is too high. This works better in manual mode or you can opt for the Trofeo driving program, which is also reflected in the digital instrument. After all the Huracan time, the instruments are probably the only thing that has gotten old, because the information in the cluster behind the wheel is confusing and the touchscreen on the center console is not up to date with the latest technology.
However, on the way back south at a warm 25 degrees Celsius, this hardly bothers anyone, because the radio sounds – albeit a bit tinny. The acoustic pleasure is anyway the ten-cylinder, which howls again and again when the white flounder pushes itself into a small gap, while powerful full-size pickups roll past next door and cell phone cameras click again. Those pick-ups also have it a little easier with luggage, because you’ll almost be in vain looking for such a compartment in the STO, because the tiny compartment under the front hood doesn’t even hold 40 liters and is therefore more suitable as a lavish, but somewhat impractical to reach Glove compartment.