Launch of Urus S highlights Lamborghini Club’s 10th year Anniversary celebrations at PGA Cars Studio
There’s been a lot of talk about a certain Italian sports car brand finally finding a new, stable and professional distributor in the country. Lots of buzz and excitement.
Of course, we shouldn’t forget the other Italian brand, the more flamboyant and rambunctious, a bad boy that craves extreme conditions as its natural setting. This is of course, the raging bull from Sant’Agata Bolognese, nestled in Italy’s Emilio-Romagna region up north.
Lamborghini has much to be thankful, celebrating its 60th year in 2023 and having the best ever sales. The Urus was key to the brand’s success, achieving 20,000 total units sold in 2022, a staggering figure from a company that originally made hundreds of beautiful but unreliable cars in the past. It took only five years for this. All other previous sports car models combined were only able to come close to this figure in roughly five decades. How things have changed, indeed!
The latest local release is the new and improved Urus S, the brand that created the super extreme SUV segment. Key differences are new front and rear bumpers, a new exhaust, new wheel designs, a carbon fiber hood that can be paired with a carbon fiber roof, painted or matte. The Urus S also offers some exterior body cladding also made from carbon fiber. Lastly, there are more colors available, more customizations possible. Inside, the Urus S gets a revised infotainment system with better connectivity, and tweaked drive modes including, quite humorously, an Eco Mode. The Urus S also has specific off-road driving modes for Terra (earth or soil), Nieve (snow) and Sabbia (sand).
The focal point is the upgraded engine, its proud and beating Italian heart. The twin-turbo V8 engine displacing 4 liters now sports 657hp. It may be a minute increase from its original 641hp (16hp gain), but the tweaks deliver improved efficiency in normal driving conditions. The other astonishing figure is its 850 Newton-Meters of torque which is enough to catapult the Urus to a supercar baiting 3.5-second sprint to 100kmh from rest and 12.5 seconds to 200kmh, all the way to the top speed of 305km/h. Power is sent to an all-wheel drive system via the ubiquitous ZF8HP transmission, the modern default choice for high power, high torque applications.
The ‘go’ is equally matched by the ‘stop’. The Urus S uses the largest ever carbon-ceramic composite brake discs up front measuring an astounding 440mm. That’s 17.23 inches in the English system, bigger than the wheels of the average compact to midsize sedan. The calipers are made by another Italian icon, Brembo, and feature a staggering 10-piston design for the fronts, and a single piston affair at the rear. All this allow the Urus S to stop from 100km/h in only 33.7 meters, even more impressive than its speed.
While the looks don’t suit everyone’s taste, it is practically sold out worldwide and even in the Philippines, most of the modest allocation is spoken for. The price? As they say, if you have to ask, you can’t afford it.
The Urus S was unveiled to Philippine customers earlier, coinciding with the Lamborghini Club’s 10th year Anniversary celebrations held at PGA Cars Studio. The Club had a ‘Bull run,’ going down south for a short but exciting drive, then back to Metro Manila, followed by breakfast at PGA Cars Studio. A total of 20 cars were present; seems small but in this rarefied field, in the Philippines, that’s a lot! And I jokingly asked how many broke down, as Lamborghinis of old were tempestuous, cantankerous, unreliable machines. Of course for the modern Lamborghinis, we know the answer.
Extreme style, speed and overall presence.
