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We've just spent the day with the new Lamborghini Huracan, and talking to the engineers and designer. Let's be clear about one thing. It really is new, and very high tech, despite the rather evolutionary looks.
When Lamborghini coyly first showed it before Christmas, the Huracan sounded almost like a re-clothed Gallardo.
You can see why they might have done the easy thing: the Gallardo was a huge success. Some 14,022 copies of the Gallardo have been made. Which is around a half of all the Lamborghinis of any kind (except tractors) sold in all of history.
But the Gallardo was 10 years old, and that's a geologic era when Ferrari and McLaren are the opposition. A warmed-over Gallardo would soon have felt very creaky indeed.
What we have instead is an all-new structure. New suspension, with new controlling electronics. And new steering. Heavily revised engine. New gearbox. New four-wheel drive system. New cabin. OK, it's a new car.
The frame is aluminium - part-cast, part-extruded - from the engine backwards (like a 458 and a McLaren 12C). It's also aluminium from the base of the windscreen forwards (again, like the opposition). Like them, it uses an aluminium skin. But the rear bulkhead and the central tunnel and the rear part of the sills are a carbonfibre RTM unit. It's like two-thirds of the McLaren's tub. The front bulkhead is aluminium.
This structure was developed hand-in-hand with Audi. The body is also built at Audi. In fact, the next-generation R8 will use exactly the same frame. That makes the next R8 and the Huracan closer than the Gallardo and current R8 were to each other, because they had different wheelbases.
The structure will serve four cars, Audi's R&D chief Ulrich Hackenberg told me: the Huracan and convertible, and the next R8 and convertible. It's 10 percent lighter than the Gallardo's body structure, and half as stiff again.
Overall the car weighs 1422kg dry, which will be 1550-odd at the kerb. McLaren says the 650S dry weight is 1330kg.
Incidentally, on the same afternoon as Lambo was telling us about the Huracan, McLaren urinated on its fireworks by announcing the 650S will go from 0-124mph in 8.4 sec on P Zero Corsas, while the Huracan does the same sprint (albeit on more road-biased P Zeros) in 9.9 sec.
Part of the McLaren's acceleration win is turbo boost. The Huracan's engine remains resolutely naked of any artificial aspiration. Instead it's a Lamborghini touchstone: big capacity, many cylinders and epic noise. It has both direct and indirect injection, so it's cleaner at low revs, but can rev higher than in the Gallardo, and produces more torque and power everywhere above 5500rpm, and goes to 8600.
But to be honest the engine isn't night-and-day different from the Gallardo's. The rest of the drivetrain certainly is. The transmission is a 7-speed dual-clutch, not the old jerky automated manual.
Oh, and there will be no full-manual option. In the last couple of years, they got 'fewer than a handful' of orders for manual Gallardos per year. In fact every time one came in, they'd check with the customer to make sure he hadn't accidentally put their tick in the wrong line on the order form.
The four-wheel-drive torque split is now electronically controlled, rather than by viscous coupling. This means it can be more rear-biased in the track modes, and can be used to balance the car more effectively.
There's also the option of the magneto-rheological dampers. Like all such systems, the outside one can be stiffened up on the way into corners to quell roll rate and quicken steering response. They're softer for rough roads, or when traction is in short supply.
Written By:- Paul Horrell
More of this article on the Top gear website