Lamborghini Houston Privately Reveals Urus to Clients
Largest U.S. Lamborghini dealership shows off 650-horsepower Urus to a packed house and 6SpeedOnline.
Hmmm… It’s a lot longer in person.
That’s what we thought when we first laid eyes on the Lamborghini Urus. Lamborghini Houston recently invited 6SpeedOnline to Life HTX, an upscale event space in Houston, Texas, to witness it being revealed to local media and then customers for the first time. Its silky black cover concealed the finer points of its design, but not its nearly 17-foot length. The dealership had received approximately 150 RSVPs from clients eager to see what was under the shroud. As the DJ filled the room with the pace and bass of dance music, men, women, and children packed into both floors and waited to see the night’s main attraction.
According to Zack Lawrence, the general manager of Lamborghini Houston, as dealership staff removed the Urus’s dark veil, the majority of the people around us were thinking, FINALLY!
Although the V12-powered LM002 was the first SUV Lamborghini ever offered, it went out of production 25 years ago. To some Lamborghini customers, the Urus is the only Lambo SUV of their lifetime. Lawrence sees it becoming the second Lamborghini in the driveways of his clients, Many of whom were patiently waiting for the Italian supercar maker to produce a vehicle with room for more than two people. Depending on how it’s specified, the Urus can seat four people and hold 20.27 cubic feet of cargo or accomodate five passengers and carry 21.75 cubic feet of luggage.
Lamborghini calls the Urus “the world’s first Super Sport Utility Vehicle,” a machine that’s both a blazingly fast supercar and a passenger-friendly SUV. Based on our interactions with a couple of our fellow attendees, the company’s marketing seems to have been effective.
Ted Nguyen, the owner of automotive customization shop EVS Motors, is used to flying down the road in exotic cars, having previously owned two Gallardos. He is considering a Bentley Bentayga as his next vehicle, but told us the Urus’s higher performance (its twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8 generates 650 horsepower and 627 lb-ft of torque, which enable a 0-62 mph time of 3.6 seconds and a top speed of 190 mph) makes it an appealing alternative which he intends to test drive.
ALSO SEE: Playing with the Lamborghini Urus Online Configurator
Those aren’t the only numbers that caught Nguyen’s eye. As strange as it may seem for anyone to consider a Lamborghini with a base price of $199,000 a “value,” that’s exactly what Nguyen sees it as – compared to the Bentayga. The Urus is also a contender for Nyugen’s financial affections because of its exclusivity and luxury appointments. Given that Nyugen drives a Rolls-Royce Phantom Coupe and a Bentley Continental GT coupe on the weekends, the Urus has a lot to live up to. Lamborghini will provide customers the ability to customize the Urus interior with a variety of materials, including natural leather or Alcantara, wood, aluminum, and carbon fiber. Additionally, it will feature “the largest range of options ever offered on a Lamborghini.”
[Editor’s Note: I bet it looks a damn sight better than the Bentayga when painted red, too.]
Attorney Kyle Stephens found the Urus’s SUV side more attractive. Like us, he initially thought it would be smaller than it turned out to be in person. Seeing it up-close, particularly its nearly 10-foot-long wheelbase, made Stephens realize the Urus offers the practicality of a daily driver, and real utility in the exotic vehicle segment. Passenger space is especially important to Stephens because he has two children. They’re small enough to fit into the rear seats of his Porsche 911 4S, for now. However, he is open to purchasing an Urus in the long term and using it to haul his kids and their gear.
Lawrence will have plenty of opportunities to discover whether the Urus’s performance figures or interior dimensions are its most popular features. He informed us via email that Lamborghini Houston will deliver 40 Uruses in 2018 (starting in Q4) and another 40 in 2019. He will drive the Urus himself both on and off road in Rome later this year. We hope to do the same here in Texas at some point in the future. If so, we’ll be sure to bring you our initial impressions of it.
*Backseat photo courtesy of Greg Riley at GearBox TV.
