As Long as Lamborghini Lives, Car Culture Will Endure

Photos by Chris Smart

My pragmatic brain is firing off calculations to my very restless body, which is squeezed into a supercar that appears to be designed with nothing but a protractor by someone obsessed with fighter jets.

With its matte grey paint, low profile, and menacing stance, the Lamborghini Huracán Tecnica wouldn’t look ridiculous with landing gear and wings. It already looks like a weapon, and since it’s been engineered for the singular goal of speed, it’s ready to inflict maximum damage.

A Fitting Farewell

The Tecnica is the final series production Huracán before it gets replaced by something electrified. This is how most of my recent stories about performance cars begin these days. Gas-powered sports cars and supercars are being discontinued at an alarming rate. Noisy and spectacular automotive icons are fading away.

“You live in the city,” my brain says, registering the gaping pothole I’ll have to carefully navigate to avoid scraping the Huracán’s rim or crushing its nose. “Crawling in bumper-to-bumper traffic is no way to live for a $300,000 supercar.”

I’m tense.

“You’ve probably consumed enough fuel in this Lamborghini over the past four days to power a Toyota Prius for a month,” my brain continues. “How are you OK with driving this thing around when people can barely afford groceries?”

Times are tough for car enthusiasts. We are at a crossroads. I worshipped Porsche 911 Turbos as a kid, I wanted to learn to drive with a manual transmission as soon as I could, and there’s nothing else that gives me fits of evil laughter more than a fast, silly, stupid car with a big, loud engine and an obnoxious exhaust.

With the climate change crisis dictating that things must change, some of us are up in arms about the electrified future because it means saying goodbye to all the stuff we love. But enthusiasm for cars will far outlast our dependency on fossil fuels, and as long as there is a Lamborghini, car culture will endure. This Huracán Tecnica simply serves as a reminder.

A Dream Come True

It will take some time for us to adjust, however. While many electric vehicles (EVs) are blindingly quick, nothing hits as hard as a V10 burbling and screaming away behind your head. The all-encompassing combination of sound and fury as a direct response to an action you took as a driver is addictive and one of the aspects I’ll miss the most. Yet it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

As essential as vehicles like the Nissan Rogue or Ford F-150 are to the automotive industry, no kid has posters of them on their walls or wallpapers on their lock screens. These vehicles are appliances built to do jobs – which they do very well – but for the dreamers, we need something more.

We need to be inspired, we crave being surprised, and we want to see and experience things we’ve never seen or experienced before. And no matter what’s powering a Lamborghini, whether it be a screaming V10 or silent electrons, this brand has the power to continue inspiring us for generations to come. Lamborghinis are crazy, silly, and barely make sense – and that’s exactly why we need them. Supercars aren’t meant to be practical. They’re beacons of awe and engineering.

As I drive slowly into a school zone with the window open a crack, I hear an excited kid scream, “What is that?”

My tension eases a bit. Later in the day, I return to the parked Huracan, and a mother and her child are waiting for me. I ask them if they want to take a look and sit inside.

The kid says no, but his mom keeps pushing him, knowing that his shyness is overpowering his curiosity. He finally relents and sits in the passenger seat, his feet barely able to touch the floor despite the low seating position. His excitement is palpable.

I sit in the driver’s seat and ask if he wants to turn it on. He’s still shy and looks to his mother for approval. I guide him through the process, but he’s still stunned.

“All you gotta do is flip the red cover up and push the button,” I tell him. “Don’t worry, my foot’s on the brake and it’s totally safe.”

A tentative finger pushes the start button and the naturally aspirated V10 roars to life. I flip it into sport mode and rev the engine for him a few times. He looks like he might have won the lottery. A car enthusiast is born and nurtured.

Final Thoughts

This happens every single time I drive a Lamborghini. People freak out, grown adults will stop dead in their tracks with their mouths wide open, and kids light up immediately.

If anyone can be stewards of car culture and continue to make cars that get kids excited, it’s Lamborghini. Electrified or not, as long as its cars look like they were crafted with the boundless imaginations of children combined with the most passionate engineers in the world, car culture will endure.

A Lamborghini’s superpower isn’t what’s actually powering it. Its superpower is giving us all something to dream about.