BULL RUSH

LAMBO’S REAR-DRIVE BABY OFFERS OLD-SCHOOL DYNAMICS THAT NEED TO BE TAMED. AND ONE HELL OF AN ENGINE

- BEN BARRY

LOW IN THE SEAT, bottom of the dashboard stretched far out ahead, I’m ripping over the Pennine Hills that run north-south towards the top of England like a spine, a huge hunk of engine out back helping adjust attitude and smear number 11s over the road. There are great peals of V10 thunder on every downshift. It’s pre-lockdown in the United Kingdom, the day before they’ll close the pubs. For a few more hours, driving for the sake of driving is still okay, and I’ve got my hands on a supercar worthy of the last-ever gallon of fuel: the new Lamborghini Huracan Evo RWD.

It is a last gasp of naturally aspirated, V10, rear-wheel-drive awesomeness, the better-to-burn-out-than-fade-away supercar you’d gun ’til the last drips of 98 sputtered through its fuel lines and then abandon with the melancholic euphoria of knowing no-one, anywhere, could ever do that again. Or at least until we’re told it’s safe to leave home again. Time’s ticking. Where to go? Who to see?

I point the Lambo north, back home to the Lake District, to see family at a visiting-hours distance, to run it hard over the roads I drove when I first got my licence, and to explore those that weren’t much further afield but that I never quite reached.