When you break down the personas behind Italy's famous supercar manufacturers, it's plain to see that Ferrari is the competitive asshole that will stop at nothing to win. Lamborghini, content with its steady stream of sales enabled by the fact that Ferrari keeps its supplies artificially low, occupies a different niche that's less concerned with lap times and more intent on adding emotion to every automotive experience whether static or in motion. But that paradigm has begun to shift, according to Automobile Magazine.
If it's not track-bred supercars like the Aventador Superveloce that proved it, it's something like the Huracan Performante, which calls the Nurburgring its home. But Lamborghini won't stop with just a world record. Ferrari might want to start shaking in its boots because Automobile claims that Lamborghini is readying seven Huracan variants, some with lap times in mind and others that just sound like byproducts of a product planner's wildly drunken imagination. The first two Huracans are the Speedster and Barchetta that will compliment a hardcore Huracan SV ask well as a GT3 Stradele. A Huracan Targa follows along with a Superleggera version, all of which we assume will sell as quickly as they can accelerate from 0-60 mph.
However, Lamborghini's craziest project yet, more so than the Egoista and Urus, has garnered the curios name, "Huracan Safari. As its name implies, this will be a Lamborghini Huracan that's built to go off-road. Yeah, you read that right. Lending it its off-road capabilities will be a height-adjustable suspension, larger wheel arches to accommodate bigger wheels and more suspension travel, all-terrain body protection panels, all-wheel drive, and four-wheel steering. Automobile claims it'll be available in both coupe and roadster format and, while it won't try to compete with a Jeep Wrangler, is engineered for rough Italian C-roads that require ground clearance and good wheel travel to traverse. That, however, is only the tip of the iceberg.
Lamborghini seems to have an entirely new direction in mind, which will be made clear when a successor to the Aventador is made available in 2020. It will make around 800 horsepower from a naturally-aspirated 7.0-liter V12 (okay, maybe now Ferrari might want to start panicking), which could then be supplemented by two electric motors powering the front wheels to sent total power output to over 1,000 horsepower. Lamborghini just had to make sure that nobody would make fun of its first hybrid, right? Customers needing a hint of sanity might want to try the lesser version of that, a V8-powered plug-in hybrid making "only" 700 horsepower. Of course, Lambo's new range-topper will be followed by a Huracan replacement.
The important thing to note is that around this time, Volkswagen AG will shift control of Lamborghini from Audi to Porsche, meaning the baby Lambo will no longer share a platform with the R8. Rather, it'll feature a scaled-down version of the V12 Lambo's platform. With Porsche running the show, expect the V10 to be replaced by a 4.0-liter V8 soured from Porsche and rated at about 650 horsepower. The baby Lambo could see as much as 900 total horsepower if a hybrid variant is included. And so it seems that Ferrari may want to brace itself, because with all that power and the inclusion of new technology borrowed from the Huracan Performante, the Prancing Horse may soon be eating dust stirred up by an angry bull.
