Supercars
Top Gear South Africa|December 2017

When the most sensible choice given the biblical conditions is a Lambo, you know it’s not exactly business as usual...

Tom Ford
Supercars
Knockhill Racing Circuit in Scotland, in the kind of rain that depresses ducks. My group? A ruinously expensive/exclusive Ford GT, the only slightly less top-end Lamborghini Huracán Performante and a lightly feral McLaren 720S. Erm… yay?

Nothing like starting at the pointy end.

I am, however, as likely to complain about driving three of the most superlative supercars of 2017 as I am to moan about winning the lottery, even if I am convinced that I just saw a salmon trying to swim up Turn 3. And so, lightly threatened by all three cars, I decide to go for the one least likely to immediately spit me into an advertising hoarding for Caber Coffee: the Lamborghini. I know, it seems like a woefully misguided idea that the least intimidating of any car park could be a Lambo, but in this company, all-wheel drive and the unboosted nature of a naturally aspirated V10 are about as much comfort as I’m going to get.

It looks pretty angry, mind. Matte orange, the new ALA (Aerodinamica Lamborghini Attiva) wings, cannon-muzzle exhausts. The interior is lightly batshit, fractalled with Lamborghini’s hexagon obsession and feathered with its uniquely dappled “forged composites” – like someone wiped over the wet carbon with a dry sponge. But it sounds orchestral on start-up, and positively cinematic on the move. It’s notably harder and more immediate through the control surfaces than a standard Huracán, and changes gear with the kind of whip-crack immediacy that makes you grin. And it feels lighter than the fortysomething kilo diet from the standard car can explain. Good stuff.

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