The Lamborghini Urus sports company trumps everything else Lamborghini makes and has drawn crowds of new customers to the brand better known for its shard-shaped sports cars.
Supercar purists have heavily criticized SUVs invading their beloved brands from SUVs. But the Urus shows that even buyers of high-end exotics find SUVs irresistible.
The 2021 Urus model year starts at nearly $ 220,000, a very high price for an everyday family vehicle. That’s really what the Urus is for: a Lamborghini that someone can drive and use every day like the countless SUVs that now fill segments in the middle of the car market.
The vehicle’s specifications and ratings of the Urus both indicate that the vehicle is impressively versatile. It can go 0-62 miles per hour in 3.2 seconds – remarkably fast acceleration for any vehicle, let alone an SUV. And it’s built to drive like a real sports car on a racetrack. But Lamborghini has also equipped the Urus for off-road driving – something Lamborghini isn’t known for.
But while some have said the Urus could be the ultimate all-round vehicle, there are some who have criticized its design for deviating too far from the sleek and whimsical shapes that have made Lamborghini famous. The Urus has also upset some sports car purists, as have Porsche’s SUVs.
Some supercar manufacturers remain on the sidelines of the SUV craze. British maker McLaren is one such company and says it doesn’t need an SUV to stay profitable. Other companies have apparently given in after some reluctance. Ferrari, for example, is reportedly working on its own SUV, after years of internal resistance.
The Urus and its success are signs that Lamborghini is becoming something of a different company than it has been for most of its history. It must now survive in a market where SUV sales have soared. In the premium and super-premium segments alone, SUVs went from just under 12% of total global car sales in 2000 to 50% in 2020, according to LMC Automotive.
Decades ago, vehicles such as the Jeep Cherokee, Ford Explorer and Toyota RAV4 began bringing the concept of the SUV to the masses. Now high-end makers, including some that have been resistant, see the way the market is evolving and decide not to fight it. Trends often trickle down from the premium segments to the mass market, said Jeff Schuster, president of Global Forecasting at LMC Automotive.
“Now we see that turnaround where the mainstream trend has prompted the premium brands to introduce the SUV to their market,” he said.