Lamborghini India dropped-off the Temerario at my apartments at 5:00 am, so that I could test the car on empty roads of Delhi and Gurgaon. But such supercars have one problem – sound. Even at the lowest possible rpm, they produce a growling note – enough to wake up the entire society.
But not the Temerario – I shifted to the EV mode, and it crawled silently through the high-rises without waking up anyone. But as I reached the highway and gassed the engine, it screamed at 10,000 rpm – yes, it’s the first production twin-turbo V8 capable of hitting 10,000 rpm.
Reminded me of the ‘Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’.
What is it?
Temerario means many things – fearless, reckless, courageous. It replaces the iconic Huracán, but instead of the 5.2-litre V10, it gets a smaller (but still big) 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 engine, supplemented by three electric motors to produce a combined total output of a whopping 920 CV (907 horsepower).
How’s the design?
In a departure from the Huracán, the Temerario has a more aggressive front. A lot of hexagonal design has been used – on DRLs, central exhaust, and tail lamps – and the engine is visible when you stand behind the car.
The cabin is like a cockpit – both digital-heavy and button-heavy. There is a tiny screen for the front passenger as well. It feels cramped, but so do fighter jet pilots. For ‘comfortably’ driving such cars, you need to be at the peak of fitness – strong leg muscles to get in, strong core to fit in, strong arms to control the steering wheel, and a strong brain to anticipate road conditions.
How does it drive?
Let’s talk about headaches first. Even with its ‘lift system’, those notorious Gurgaon speed breakers felt like mountains, and I had to constantly scan the road for potholes. The car is wide (more than 2.2 metres), and that made parking in tight lanes challenging. And there is almost zero cabin storage – you need to figure out where to keep your wallet and phone.
But performance is elite, with the car reaching 100 km/h in a mind-numbing 2.7 seconds (claimed top speed is 343 km/h), with electric motors masking the turbo lag. Accelerating it is a spine-numbing surge, even as the engine redlining at 10,000 rpm howls louder than the Hulk. I did some controlled cornering at 80 km/h, and the car displayed near-unlimited grip.
What I didn’t like?
While it’s called a plug-in hybrid, the electric-only range is just 5 km, and the charging cable is barely 3 feet – meaning the ‘electric’ part of this Lamborghini is just symbolic, and the plug-in is for power, not for planet. The engine charges the 3.8-kWh battery in minutes, and so you won’t ever use the charging cable, and even if you want to use, you will need an extension – such an irony for a car costing Rs 5.87 crore, ex-showroom.
Verdict
At its on-road price of almost Rs 7 crore in Delhi, you can buy the Mercedes-Maybach S-Class (best car in the world), the BMW i7 (best EV), and still have enough pocket change left to take a five-star holiday trip around the world in a business jet.
