I Owned A Lamborghini Huracán for A Day

I’ve always considered myself pretty good at first dates.

It’s a chance to start with a clean slate, present yourself in the best light possible, and every once in a while, wake up in an unfamiliar apartment. When our friends at Lamborghini tossed me the keys for my first date with a 2015 Huracán (above), I had no idea that we were going to skip the pleasantries and head straight to the bedroom.

This thing is pure sex, inside and out. Every surface that isn’t carbon or composite is draped in Alcantara leather. Run your hand over it without pitching a tent...it's impossible.

The cockpit is riddled with red accents, popping out at you like emergency levers in a fighter pilot's, well, cockpit. Even the ignition button is covered up like an Italian dominatrix brandishing glossy red lipstick forcefully asking, “You sure you want all of this, punk?”

Yes, yes I did.

Flipping up the protective cover and prodding the ignition button unleashes a deep, throaty, echoing growl from behind you. A little jarring at first, as it should be when you lose your V-Card to a 5.2L V10 capable of spitting out 602 horses, each of which is hell bent on getting you to 202 mph in as little time as possible. (The glass and carbon stable where they're kept is worth a look if you ever find yourself not behind the wheel.)

Of course, once you’ve hit the ignition switch, those horses have to go somewhere. My chap at Lamborghini explained that the Huracán comes equipped with an “electrohydraulic multi-plate clutch” attached to an AWD drivetrain. I pressed him on what this meant, more specifically, for me: “It means you’re not gonna die today. Probably not, anyways.”

The double clutch, to my understanding, alleviates what has always been the bane of every Lamborghini owner’s existence; it has this massive reserve of power, but the odds of you being able to skillfully translate that to the wheels without jerking your girlfriend around in first and second gear were extremely low. The Huracán, by contrast, is deceptively easy to maneuver at low speed.

Lamborghini’s also inherited the latest dash tech from their brothers at Audi; when next year’s TT hits the States, you’ll find significant similarities in the way the car disseminates information to your eyeballs. It’s good news all around—the last thing I wanted to be doing while double checking the Huracán’s 0-60 mph time was averting my attention from the road.

Actually driving this particular supercar around was an exercise in a dual reality. In every sense of the phrase, it was a lady in the street, but a freak in the bed. When driving around town in “Strada” mode (Street, in Italian, obvs.), you’ve got this tame tiger, pawing around playfully with the occasional loud purr. Flip it into sport-mode though, and you’ll feel like you're storming the streets of Monaco in a pure bred Formula 1 car.

"Corsa" mode, on the other hand, is where things get hairy. Unsurprisingly, “Corsa” is Italian for Race Course, which means higher rev limits, much less traction control, and all of the friendly cushiness of that double clutch tweaked out by microcomputers and Molotov cocktails.

Taking a twisty turn in the hills of Monterey, California in Corsa mode was, for me, confirmation that I should not legally be allowed a passenger in my vehicle, ever.

The Huracán is a triumph, a flawlessly-executed shotgun marriage between German precision and Italian fire—that rare mixture that can propel you to over 200 mph, but allows you to actually parallel park the thing, too.

Like all dalliances with supermodels, both real and imagined, mine was over far too soon. I handed the keys back to the Lambo boys with what felt like lipstick all over my collar and a silly grin on my face. Could they tell I almost blew through the compound's exit, pointed east on I-10 and gunned it until the authorities caught me on the outskirts of Vegas? Yes, I assume they could.

Below, you'll find a few more snaps we took while behind the wheel. Enjoy. 

Ted Gushue is the executive editor of Supercompressor. He's not contemplating going back to law school.