Go Anywhere Very Very Quickly

550 horses and twin-turbo V8s are the minimum entry points into the rarefied world of the super-SUV.

- Sirish Chandran

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A SUPER SUV. A supercar, yes, listed in the dictionary as a very expensive fast or powerful car with a centrally located engine, but even then the proper application is subjective and disputed. The R8 is midengined but is it a supercar? The NSX is a bonafide icon but is it a supercar?

SuperSUV is then completely open to debate and interpretation, even down to how it should be written. Makes the lecture I was subjected to by the Lamborghini PR people a bit odd, especially their insistence that the Urus is the only SUV worthy of the SuperSUV tag. Sure the Urus’ marketing is liberally peppered with Super Sport Utility Vehicle but that, to me, is not the most elegant way of putting it – after all in the car world, super sports cars are 911 Turbos, not Aventadors. And why not call them Hyper-SUVs? Or are we leaving that open for a Veyron/ Chiron on stilts? Semantics aside, it stands to reason that if a supercar is a car superior to all others, a Super-SUV is an SUV superior to all others. Or as the Urban dictionary puts it, very expensive, very fast penis extensions. And on either count, all four here qualify for the SuperSUV tag.

THE SUPER SUV

LAMBORGHINI URUS

IT’S ONLY FITTING THAT THE URUS IS THE ONE to bring the word super-SUV into public consciousness, seeing that back in the sixties it was the Miura that got motoring journalists all hot and bothered with the word supercar. And just like the Miura was a supercar even when standing still so too is the Urus a mad, visual, sensory overload. It is spectacular. Gosh, just look at it. Like all those iconic Lambo supercars, the Urus too is worthy of the real estate on your bedroom wall. It’s SUV porn. And even if you delete the badges, everybody will know that this is a Lamborghini; it could only ever be a Lamborghini.