What's the difference?
Large family-friendly luxury SUVs tend to be handsome in design but somewhat restrained. Until now. BMW has introduced a major facelift for its flagship SUV, the six- or seven-seat X7. Emphasis on face.
The new X7 adopts the striking but controversial front-end from the new 7 Series sedan, but the big, bold SUV is hiding some rather significant changes under the skin. Aside from a beefier diesel that now comes with mild hybrid tech, there’s also a redesigned cabin, massively upgraded tech, more standard features, oh, and a price increase.
Lamborghini is famous for making glamorous supercars whose pilots seem so carefree they don’t appear to need a boot, or back seats, or even families.
They don’t even seem to mind them being so low they have to get in and out on all fours – well that’s how I need to do it, anyway.
Yup, Lamborghini is famous for these exotic race cars for the road… not SUVs.
But it will be, I know it.
I know, because the new Lamborghini Urus came to stay with my family and we torture tested it, not on the track or off-road, but in the 'burbs doing the shopping, the school drop-offs, braving multi-storey car parks and the potholed roads daily.
While I never like to give the game away this early in a review, I need to say the Urus is astounding. This is truly a super SUV that is every bit as Lamborghini as I hoped, but with a big difference – you can live with it.
Here’s why.
When lined up against its direct rivals, the expensive X7 xDrive40d represents reasonable value for money.
It has a unique and bold look and a sumptuous, visually striking and well-appointed interior that has acres of space for family, friends, or for ferrying frequent flyers to the airport.
That wallop of performance from the big beefy diesel is the cherry on the top. This is how you do a mid-life update.
Lamborghini has nailed it. The Urus is a super SUV that’s fast, dynamic, and has Lamborghini looks, but just as importantly it’s practical, spacious, comfortable and easy to drive. You’re not going to find those last four attributes in a sentence about an Aventador.
Where the Urus loses marks is in terms of warranty, value for money and fuel consumption.
I didn’t take the Urus on the Corsa nor the Neve, nor Sabbia and Terra, but as I said in my video we know this SUV is capable on the track and that it can go off-road.
What I really wanted to see was how well it handled regular life. Any competent SUV can deal with shopping centre car parks, dropping kids off at school, carrying boxes and bags, and of course fitting and being driven as you would any car.
The Urus is a Lamborghini anybody could drive, pretty much anywhere.