Lamborghini Huracán STO: Constructive Dialogue on a Monday

A dark alley in a squalid neighborhood, shortly after midnight. Here, in a rather plain-looking town of this otherwise so idyllic and peaceful area of southern Germany, we meet our source: male, mid-fifties. We’re not allowed to say more. Contact was made through an intermediary. He would accept our offer and drive this wicked Lamborghini. “No prisoners?” he asked. “No prisoners.”

Nothing about this story is politically correct. That was clear to us from the start. And yet we gave our source the keys to a Lamborghini Huracán STO, in a kind of experiment to find out what happens when this car, so extreme in design and performance, takes hold of a person. How it grabs him. Excites him. Influences him.

Afterwards, we wanted to work through what he had experienced. But when we meet again, we are welcomed rather tersely with:

And then our source begins to talk:

“Initially, I was totally excited to be able to drive the STO. I was thinking: awesome! First of all, thank you so much for your trust in me. Incredible! Without any paperwork, without me having to sign anything, suddenly I was holding the key to this Lamborghini in my hand . . . mine for a whole three days! I waited for the weather to improve, because I do like to bring other people’s cars back in one piece. But soon I found myself thinking: To hell with the weather, I’ve got to take this car onto the autobahn. Right now! So before I know it, I’m off on the A8 heading towards Munich, it’s a weekday, and there seems to be a holiday somewhere as well, because I see lots of Dutch cars with those roof boxes on top. What’s more, the whole autobahn is filled with morons."

"I thought to myself, that just had to happen! I wasn’t expecting that at all. So, had to go slow at first. Pretty much just put-putting along. I thought to myself, this can’t be happening! What’s going on here? I want to drive this car the way it was meant to be driven – now! So I put on these Italian license plates and off I go. With Italian plates you can drive like a maniac and nobody will care. Not at all. I raced along the autobahn, weaving in and out of traffic as if I was in a video game: left, right, left, pass. It was as if everyone else on the road was just an extra in my own private movie. At least that’s what it seemed like to me. And so I blew my way across the autobahn and none of the usual German do-gooders scolded me, not once. I think people just didn’t have enough time for hating or celebrating, because I was there and gone much too quickly."

"The car is agile, it handles well, it feels good – and then I thought: Does it have all-wheel drive? Or is it rear-wheel drive only? You don’t notice anything like that on the autobahn. The car is nimble, light and even more aggressive than the Performante. And the Performante is pretty fierce. But you notice right away that the STO is a bit edgier, even more aggressive. In terms of sound, I can’t say whether there’s a difference. Anyway, it was cold out that day, so I was searching a bit desperately for the seat heater – and was actually quite pleased when I didn’t find one. I immediately thought: right on! And then: if there’s no seat heater, what’s all this other junk doing in here? Can’t we leave that out too? Because with all the air conditioning and ventilation and all that stuff, the car could be a good hundred kilos lighter if you threw out all those bells and whistles. I don’t need that at all."

"All that stuff is a shame, of course, because I start thinking it’s kind of like a clown car. But okay. Anyway, the autobahn was too crowded for my taste and I didn’t want to be arrested for accidentally overtaking the police, so I got off, the tires were warm, the car was warm, and the weather was clearing up a bit too. The roads were still damp, and I drove from Weilheim up into the Swabian Alb. I know the route, up and down, down and up. There was hardly any traffic – a cyclist, maybe one or two delivery trucks, otherwise I don’t remember anything. Maybe at some point I passed a car, or two, or five, I don’t really remember now, because I really got into a frenzy. And it was so much fun!"

"I thought to myself, why don’t I have winter tires on all my supercars? That’s when all the best roads are empty. You just can’t care about the salt. Anyway, I really pushed the speedometer well above two hundred a couple of times. I know you shouldn’t, but I just couldn’t help myself. The car is so much fun and it makes you feel like it’s having fun with you, too. That’s what it’s built for. Curves and corners while high on speed! I had this great feeling that the car was engaging in a constructive dialogue with me. Crystal clear feedback. And it shows you where the limits are."

And these limits are exactly what the source then explores extensively - with a clear realization. Wet roads, a bright light and a lot of speed play a relatively large role in this, by the way. And of course, the source survived - otherwise it wouldn't have been able to talk to us. And the Huracán STO? After all, he wanted constructive dialog.

→ Read this and numerous other stories now in ramp #57 "Really?"