Lamborghini’s new Temerario has been subject to… mixed reactions. People say it’s too fat, too soft, too easy, and too electric. These same people bemoan the loss of this car’s predecessor, the Huracan, all while forgetting that the Huracan was accused of all these same faults (minus the electric bit) when it was new, too. Mark my words: at the end of this car’s lifecycle, people like me will write touching tributes about its demise, and people like you will long for the good-ole days where cars like this Lamborghini Temerario Alleggerita could exist.

Design

I don’t love the perpetually parroted Top Gear quote about Lamborghinis needing to be insane and have wings, and guns, and wings bolted to the guns, but I agree with the general sentiment that any vehicle wearing the raging bull badge should be exciting to behold. It should create a visceral reaction, it should get your heart rate up and your brain tingling, even while sitting still. I dare you to look at this bright yellow bullet of a machine and tell me you’re not feeling fizzy.

It’s instantly familiar as a Lamborghini while updating the formula ; it could easily pass as a mid-cycle sharpening for the Huracan and I don’t think anyone would mind. I really admire the broad scope of customizability available, and I really love how Lamborghini uses the carbon-fibre bodywork of the Alleggerita package to create striking visual highlights, without leaning too heavily on carbon for the sake of it.

I love the Giallo Classica paint, I love the metallic grey accent separating the paint from the carbon, I love the titanium pocketed, machined-face hexagonal wheels; this is a hot spec. and I feel like people wouldn’t be complaining as much about Lamborghini losing their way if they maybe didn't lean quite as hard on the demure matte blue hero colour in their marketing materials. Like all of the bona-fide exotics I’ve had the privilege of pointing a camera at, this car is riveting at rest, as a Lamborghini ought to be.

Interior

Like the exterior, we’re in familiar territory with the interior; no current Huracan or Revuelto owner will feel alienated by this cabin. It evokes the same dramatic fighter-jet canopy shape, albeit subdued very slightly to enable you to see out of the car in most directions and not feel claustrophobic, which is a nice quality of life upgrade that isn't regarded highly enough.

There’s more space behind the seats, there’s more space in the glove box, there’s more space for you and your limbs; people take for granted that an ergonomically sound driving position is a relatively recent innovation in supercars. Beyond being more roomy, the tech all looks fairly familiar at a glance, but operates with far more immediacy than before, with slicker animations and faster load times.

Having said that, there are still some minor hang-ups, and I did clock a few bugs, but the user interface is generally much improved. You don’t buy a Lamborghini for the software suite, anyway, but it's nice to have. Outside of the occasional minor tech foible, nothing about the cabin felt anything other than first-rate. Materials are well chosen, generally gorgeous, and impeccably assembled.

POWERTRAIN

Engine

The subject of so much contention: the Temeraio does away with the unique V10 that powered its predecessor, and substitutes it with what might seem like a bog-standard twin-turbo hot-vee 4-litre V8, like just about everyone else has resorted to using. While it sounds generic on paper, the similarities to its competition don’t leave the page.

As was made abundantly clear to me at the launch event for this car, this new flat-plane V8 is born and bred in-house by Lamborghini, and it couldn’t exist without the massive snails feeding it or the hybrid electric motors helping it out. On its own, it produces 789 horsepower with a tantalizing 10,000 rpm redline, and the exotic axial-flux electric motor brings the combined total up to 907 horsepower and 590 foot-pounds of torque.

For anyone reading who might be spoiled by numbers splattered across Tiktok reels, let me make something abundantly clear: that is an absurd amount of power, even in a race car. There is nothing "starter" or "baby" about it. You wouldn't call a 1000cc Ducati superbike anything other than death-defying, and this pulls harder than that.

Hybrid drive

Like the Revuelto, the gas engine (or Thermal Engine, as the car calls it) doesn’t start until you demand it via the drive mode selector and/or a heavy foot. In Citta (city) mode, it will lean primarily on its electric drivetrain to get around, and even then, while it’s relatively quiet compared when the engine is running, there’s enough fan noise and alien whirring from the electric system to lend some suitable drama to it.

The charge level is only rated for a max of 6 kilometres, but that’s assuming you don’t decelerate and regenerate, ever. In practice, Citta mode is enough to get through a real city and onto the highway in semi-silence, minus the mechanical whirring.

Strada (street) mode, it operates as more of a hybrid, either running the engine as a generator, or engaging it directly for harder acceleration and higher speed cruising, In Sport (obvious) and Corsa (Race) mode, it will automatically kick the engine to life in anticipation, and just like the Revuelto, you’ll need to wait a minute before it’s got enough temperature in it to start contributing to the experience, and up to 20 minutes for the oil to get warm enough to open up the full ten grand.

Like an old-world wine, it needs to breathe a for a while before you can really start unpacking it (but if you insist on chugging it now, like a rube, the variable redline will open up enough to impress the crowd as you roll out of your local Cars and Coffee in a few minutes).

In flight

Launch

Every part of it feels like a Revuelto mixed with a Huracan; the 8-speed gearbox and most of the hyrbid system is exactly the same. It has the same tendencies, the same habits, the same fraying around the edges in the same spots. Anyone who has heard the Temerario is too sanitized needs to get their ears out of their ass. 

For such a sophisticated car, it can feel surprisingly primitive - and I mean that in a good way; it's by no means an Audi in an obnoxiously pinstriped Armani suit. It whirrs and clunks and buzzes like a race car. The flat-plane V8 is a bit of a coarse engine, with a loud, resonant character that you can feel through the whole car; you would know exactly what this engine was doing even if you were completely deaf. 

noise

Let’s talk about sound; a lot of people are dismissing this without giving it a chance because it can’t possibly have the same acoustic fury as the naturally aspirated V10 that came before it, and I cannot deny that yes, it is quite different and no, it’s not nearly as musical as its predecessor. But I’ll remind you that different does not equal lesser. 

If the V10 sounded like two VAG inline-fives joined widthwise, this new V8 sounds and feels and awful lot like four Ducati V–twins sandwiched together and forced to share a crankshaft. It’s not a pretty noise at all, it’s ugly, mechanical, guttural, with electric motors whining, turbos huffing and puffing, fans whirring, and four brutal motorcycle engines -who all hate each other- scowling in unison. There is nothing beautiful about it, it feels perpetually annoyed, and all it wants to do is find catharsis by screaming as hard as it possibly can.

AT MACH

Like an uncontrolled rage, it’s a little scary to be around once you get it going. The situation escalates quickly, with the electric motors instantly dragging the car forward while the turbos take a beat to gather their breath -like a motorcycle, there is no one home in the bottom half of the tach- and then power starts building exponentially as the revs roar, all the way up to ten.

Putting down more than nine hundred horsepower is not a trivial task; that kind of power is borderline unusable in top tier race cars, and now it’s under your foot on the road. Occasionally you may feel a strangeness, with the rear end perhaps wandering slightly to one side - that’s the car protecting you from killing yourself with the insane amount of energy its trying to convince the pavement to convert into motion.

Unlike something like say, the Corvette E-Ray, where it’s all torque all the time, the Temerario is almost old-school with its turbo lag, with the electric motor barely filling in the response gap before the turbos explode into the engine and violently teleport you forward.

Very much like a serious motorcycle, it is frightening once it gets going. Power delivery is so abundant and so rapacious that it’s difficult to keep track of, and it’s made worse by the long gearing, which doesn’t feel long until you look down and realize you’re only in fourth and you should have lost your license to drive a long time ago…

…and then you keep going anyway. The pursuit of that 10,000 rpm rage seeps into you and corrupts you. At first you think you couldn't possibly need that much power, and in short order you're frustrated that the entire world is going so damn slow!

maneuvering

It's well set up to handle all this power and direct around corners, too. Like I said earlier, it feels like a blend of Huracan and Revuelto in every regard. The front end is sharp, and gets scalpel precise when amped up to its more potent drive modes, with eager turn-in, oodles of mechanical grip, and perhaps better steering feedback than the Huracan - Lamborghini does listen to criticism, you know. The steering is gorgeous, and adeptly straddles the boundary between sharp and too sharp, allowing you some wiggle room for mid-corner corrections without feeling like you’re upsetting the car.

This car handles very well. If you plow into a low-speed corner too hot, it’ll give way to mild, safe understeer, every time, but if you even slightly know how to drive and respect it, it’ll reward you with fabulous balance, absurd lateral grip, and a distinct predilection for power-oversteer in Corsa mode. It even has a drift mode that can work with the electric motors which, to be honest, I did not have the bravery/stupidty to try on the street, but from what I've seen in its mid-corner power-over behaviour, I have no doubt it works as advertised. Despite the hybrid system, brake feel from the big carbon ceramics is excellent, which is very reassuring in a car that’s capable of superbike speeds. 

Seriously, why is everyone going so slow?

In traffic

Everyone will always be going so slow. It’s hopeless, but in the Temerario, you don’t have to suffer for it. One of my formative memories as a child is being stuck in traffic next to a Lamborghini Diablo, and the driver looked like he wanted to die; now that I’ve driven one, I know why. The Temerario is not like that.

I hit a half-hour traffic snarl after a photo shoot on my first day with the car. No problem; I put the car in Cittia mode to kill the irritated buzz-bomb engine and coasted on seamless electric power all the way home. I set the new adaptive cruise control, borrowed from Audi, and let the car stop and go in traffic on my behalf. 

I spent the rest of the time digging through the updated infotainment system, which still isn’t entirely free of hiccups, but it actually works now, and even works fairly well, with slick transitions, and it even allowed me to connect to my phone and play music through the remarkable Sonus Faber sound system - a feat I could never pull off in the Huracan.

The ride is never not firm, but it’s soft enough in its tamest modes to be livable, and the seats - even these manual sport seats - are terrifically supportive and comfortable. Outside of the frustration of why is everyone going so slow, the Temeraraio is, dare I say it, pleasant in traffic. Visibility isn’t even that bad, either, and the higher-resolution surround view cameras only help things when it comes to parking. Where did we get the idea that destroying a stiff clutch and not being able to see were virtues?

Lastly, I cannot make this clear enough: The Sonus Faber audio upgrade is worth every one of the $7,200 needed to tick that option box. Wow.

Money

The Temerario is a lot of car, and as such, commands a lot of money. Base price starts at $432,000 (CAD), and this test car, with the Alleggrita package, convenience package, technology package, and tons of Ad Personam customization features, rings in at $642,800. If you’re looking at it through the closed mind of an r/cars commenter, it’s an outrageous sum for a "starter Lambo."

If you look at it with a brain, you’re getting a gorgeous, impeccably tailored, insanely fast exotic car that’s relatively easy to live with and enjoy. If you are sitting in one of these, you are, almost without a doubt, the absolute fastest thing on the road. Maybe even above and beyond a million dollar Revuelto.

Wrap it up

Do yourself a favour and stop being hung up on the Huracan. The Lamborghini Temerario Alleggrita is not the same thing, it's not trying to be the same thing, but to think that the people working in St'Agata Bolognese just up and forgot how to build a Lamborghini is absurd.

They know damn well what the raging bull badge represents, and they know what kind of scintillating style, exhilarating driving experience, and outrageous performance made these cars a fixture in the hearts of minds of people around the world. Temerario may mean reckless when translated to English, but they've taken great care to preserve the reckless spirit of the raging bull, while taming it just enough for you to want to experience it over and over again.