Lamborghini Huracan vs Ferrari 812

What's the difference?

Not just a spectacularly stupid idea made real, the Lamborghini Sterrato is by far the best, or at least most hilarious, of the many Huracan variants the company has produced. 

It makes you feel like a hero, even when you’re going sideways on dirt like a nutter. It could just be my new favourite supercar. 

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.

Clearly, this is not a car for everyone, and you’d have to question whether it’s a car for anyone, really, but people who like spending $610,000 on Ferraris, and waiting in a queue to do so, will be delighted, because it delivers the kind of exclusivity, and bragging rights, that you’d have to hope a car called Superfast would.

Personally, it’s a little too much, a little too over the top and definitely too mad, but if rockets are your thing, you won’t be disappointed.

Oh yes, it’s pretty interesting, all right, because it breaks new dusty ground for Lamborghini, and its Huracan in particular.

To cope with its intended use, the Sterrato has been raised 44mm higher than the ground-hugging normal version and it’s also had giant, bolt-on style guards attached to make it look a bit wilder.

Also quite noticeable is the huge roof scoop - which renders rear vision from the driver’s seat a complete zero, they may as well throw the mirror away - which has to be there to help the V10 engine breathe.

The side air intakes through which air usually gets to the mid-mounted power plant have been blocked up, because they would have sucked in too much dirt and gravel. 

I’m happy to report the silly looking rally style headlights stuck to the Huracan’s shark nose are optional, although again, no doubt every buyer has gone for them, because they stand out in a crowd.

The Huracan Sterrato has no problem doing that on its own, of course, because it already looks extremely aggressive, and its knobbly, all-terrain tyres finish off that style flourish.

It’s very… big, isn’t it? And it looks even bigger in the flesh with a bonnet you could use to put a roof over your tennis court. In all, the Superfast is 4.6m long, almost 2.0m wide and weighs 1.5 tonnes, so it certainly has presence.

Making something this big look good is a challenge even for those as talented as Ferrari’s design team, but they have nailed it. The front has what appears to be a mouth, poised to swallow lesser cars whole like some whale shark Terminator. 

The bonnet appears to be flaring its nostrils, and looks fabulous from the driver’s seat, and the swooping side and taut rear complete things nicely.

Personally, it still just looks too big to be a Ferrari, but then this is not a mid-engined super car, it’s a grand touring rocket ship, and the ultimate expression of unnecessary excess, and it pulls off that aura perfectly.

Next question, please. You don’t get cupholders, there’s not really anywhere to put your phone and the cabin generally feels as roomy as a phone box that’s been through the wash and shrunk quite badly.

There’s a frunk that can barely hold two small backpacks and that’s about it. If you want practical space, buy an Urus. The Huracan Sterrato is not a practical car, but that’s not part of its design brief.

Practicality isn’t really your concern when you buy a two-seat mega car like this, so let’s just say it’s about as practical as you would expect it to be. Not very, then.

Is it possible that any car - save one made from gold, dusted with diamonds and stuffed with truffles - would represent good value at a price of $610,000? It seems unlikely, but then people who can spend that much assay value differently, and would probably say that something as profound as the 812 Superfast is worth buying at any price.

Another way to look at it is price-per-litre, which is less than $100,000, considering you do get 6.5 litres of V12 Ferrari donk. Or you could go by kilowatt, which works out at nearly $1000 each for your 588kW.

Other than that you do get a lot of leather, a high-quality interior, superior exterior styling, badge-snob value that’s hard to put a price on and vast swathes of F1-derived technology. And a free car cover.

The Sterrato is powered by a Lamborghini engine that’s on its way into the history books, a 5.2-litre V10 that will die with this, the last variant of the Huracan.

Its replacement will be powered by a V8 hybrid, which will no doubt be more powerful but simply will not sound as amazing.

The version in the Sterrato has been detuned slightly, partly because of the breathing issues - you just can’t get as much air into an engine when it’s driving through its own self-propelled dust storm - and because of its all-terrain tyres, the first ever to be speed rated to 260km/h.

It still makes an impressive, and very loud, 449kW (602hp) and 560Nm, however. I’d describe it as “more than enough”.

That monster engine is matched with a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic and a very, very clever all-wheel drive system.

I did want to give the epic, enormous 6.5-litre naturally aspirated V12 engine a perfect 10 here, but when I paused to think about it I had to admit that it is, quite possibly, a little too powerful.

Yes, it is amazing to think Ferrari can build a car that has 588kW (800 horsepower - hence the 812 nomenclature; 800 horses and 12 cylinders) and doesn’t just dig itself a hole in the road as soon as you put your foot down.

And yes, it does provide the kind of performance that makes all other cars seems a bit piss poor and pathetic, even the really good ones. 

But honestly, who could ever use it all, or need it all? They might seem like irrelevant questions, I guess, because it’s all about conspicuous over-excess, a car like this, so really the question is, would anyone want to live with 588kW and 718Nm of torque, or is it just too scary in reality?

Well, a little bit, yes, but Ferrari’s engineers have been wise enough not to actually give you all of that power, all the time. Torque is limited in the first three gears, and maximum mental power is actually only available, in theory, at 8500rpm in seventh gear, at which point you’d be approaching its top speed of 340km/h.

The fact that you can rev an engine this big, and this lusciously loud, all the way to 8500rpm is, however, a joy that would never tire.

In more practical terms, you can run 0-100km/h in 2.9 seconds (although cheaper, less crazy cars can do that, too) or 200km/h in 7.9 (which is a tiny bit slower than the far lighter McLaren 720S).

What you can’t do, of course, is achieve any of those numbers on winter tyres, or roads with snow on them.

So, Lamborghini claims the Huracan Sterrato will deliver a fuel "economy" figure of 14.9 litres per 100km, which seems like a lot, until you consider it probably won't get anywhere near that, if you drive it the way you're supposed to, particularly foot flat and wheels spinning on dirt.

Again, fuel economy is not a core value for this car, nor its buyers.

An 80-litre tank means a theoretical range of around 480km.

Much as you can’t have a good volcano without some serious lava, you can’t have 800 horsepower without burning a lot of dead dinosaur goo. The Superfast has a claimed fuel-economy figure of 14.9L/100km, but on our drive the screen just said "Ha!" and we burned through a whole tank of fuel in less than 300km. 
Theoretical emissions are 340g/km of CO2.

I could give you the short version of what it was like to drive the Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato at speed on a specially prepared dirt race track, which would be to say that I have never, ever had so much fun in a car, but that would be selling it short.

While the Sterrato is clearly built to do one insensible thing brilliantly, while somehow not imperilling the life of its driver, what is most incredible about it is how good it is at everything else, as well.

To create this Huracan, Lamborghini had to increase the ride height significantly, soften up the suspension and increase its amount of travel.

It also had to ask Bridgestone nicely to produce a tyre unlike anything the world has ever seen, an all-terrain tread capable of dealing with dirt and gravel and yet also grippy enough to be used on a sealed race track, or to carve up your favourite mountain pass. 

It also had to be capable of being speed rated to 260km/h, or about 100km/h faster than any all-terrain tyre Bridgestone has ever produced before. 

Looking at the unique Dueler All-Terrain AT002s, with their chunky tread, you would assume that the Sterrato is going to be noisy, slippery and possibly a little rough on public roads, but that’s not the case at all.

This Huracan rides more smoothly - largely thanks to those suspension tweaks - and more quietly than its forebears, and it’s actually more practical around town as well, thanks to the ride height. So, no more flinching at speed bumps.

The tyres also provide proper supercar levels of grip on public roads, even those dusted with a bit of desert sand.

There’s a bit of squirm at the rear and under hard braking, but overall the experience is typically Lamborghini Huracan wonderful, all playing out to a soundtrack that is beyond beautiful from that howling V10.

The first part of our track experience at the Chuckwallah Raceway was also familiarly fantastic, the Huracan ripping around the sealed track at astonishing speed; it certainly doesn’t feel detuned.

Lamborghini had gone to the trouble of mirroring the sealed circuit with a specially constructed dirt track in the infield, so that 50 per cent of our lap would be spent sideways in ankle deep, dust, sand and rocks, much of it through long, long bends, with the occasional chicane set up specially for Scando flicking action.

Now, I am not, by any means, an expert at drifting, nor an accomplished rally driver, so I was, to put it mildly, shit scared of getting this half-million-dollar, limited-edition, 449kW monster on to the dirt section.

I feared I would spin around, or flip upside down, or find some other way to embarrass myself, but what happened when I got there was beyond inexplicable, and beyond joy.

This car is so clever, so easy to drive, so beautifully balanced, that it can turn a total newb into Colin McRae. His name comes to me because the whole experience reminded me of driving a rallying video game, it felt unreal, and yet overpoweringly visceral at the same time.

I could start a drift with the slightest flex of the throttle, then balance the car as it pivoted around a bend before nailing the throttle and haring off to the next fantastic drifting opportunity.

When we got back on the sealed stuff, the car would shake like mad, at 200km/h, as the dust attempted to get its way out of the wheels, but that just added to the excitement. 

The secret wasn’t that I’d somehow become a better driver, it was what Lamborghini engineers call, accurately, “the hero maker”. 

It’s a software and hardware package called LDVI, or 'Lamborghini Dinamica Veicolo Integrata', which, when you put the Sterrato in 'Rally' mode, uses many sensors combined with torque vectoring and selective braking to keep you going where you want to go, with minimal intervention.

Or at least minimal intervention that you can feel, which makes you feel like a hero.

I kind of understand how it works, but I totally relate to how it makes you feel. Like a genius. And you’d pay $500K for that, surely?

Insane. It’s a word that people often lift from their lexicon when describing a supercar experience, because clearly, as forms of transport, things like Ferraris and Lamborghinis are not sane options.

But the Superfast really deserves the word, because it feels not only the opposite of sane, but truly bonkers. As if someone built it for a dare, realised it was a bad and possibly dangerous idea, and then put it on sale anyway.

Picture some tiny-handed child with his greasy, post-cheeseburger fingers poised over a big red button on his desk that could wipe out humanity, and that’s basically the situation your right leg finds itself in when driving the Superfast.

There is so much power on tap here - even the limited amount of it that the engineers allow you to access in lower gears - that it truly seems possible you’ll have a Road Runner moment, and simply dig a hole in the ground, if you push the throttle too hard.

Yes, on the one hand, the noises this extreme V12 makes above 5000rpm are memorable and moving, like Satan himself singing Nessun Dorma in a shower of sparks. At one stage we found a long tunnel, perhaps the only dry road within 500km that day, and my colleague forgot all about his licence and let rip.

The numbers on my 'Passenger Screen' spun like poker-machine wheels, then turned red and then implausible. I was shoved back into my seat as if by Thor himself, and I squealed like a small pig, but my co-driver heard nothing over the Monaco tunnel during F1 sound.

Even on dry road, of course, the winter tyres we were forced (by law) to run in the foul snowy conditions could not maintain grip, and we constantly felt the rear skipping sideways. Fortunately we were in Italy, so people simply cheered us on.

The likelihood that you will lose traction in this car is so high that the boffins have included a special feature in its new 'Electronic Power Steering' system called 'Ferrari Power Oversteer'. When you inevitably start going sideways, the steering wheel will apply subtle torque to your hands, 'suggesting' the best way to get the car back in a straight line.

A proud engineer told me that this is basically like having a Ferrari test driver in the car with you, telling you what to do, and that they used their skills to calibrate the system. You can override it, of course, but it sounds scarily like an autonomous-driving precursor to me.

What’s disappointing about this car having EPS at all, rather than a traditional hydraulic system, is that it just doesn’t feel muscular enough for a hairy-handed monster of a car like this.

It is accurate and precise and pointy, of course, and makes driving the Superfast, even in stupidly slippery conditions, almost easy. Almost.

It’s actually surprising how hard you can push a car like this along a windy and wet mountain road without careering off into a muddy field.

More time, and more traction, would have been appreciated, but you can tell it’s the sort of car you’d grow into, and perhaps even feel in control of, after a decade or so together.

So it’s good, yes, and very fast, obviously, but I can’t get past the idea that it’s all a bit unnecessary, and that a 488 GTB is simply, in every single way, a better car.

But as a statement, or a collector’s item, the Ferrari 812 Superfast certainly is one for the history books.

It might not surprise you to hear that, unlike every other company’s press kits, the Ferrari ones don’t generally include a section on 'safety'. Perhaps because driving something this powerful is inherently unsafe, or possibly because they believe their 'E-Diff 3', 'SCM -E' (magnetorheological suspension control with dual-coil system), 'F1-Traction Control', ESC and so forth will keep you on the road no matter what. 

If you do fly off, you’ll have four airbags, and a nose as big as a house forming a crumple zone, to protect you.

The Huracan Sterrato comes with a Lamborghini warranty good for three years with unlimited kilometres.

It also comes with 24/7 roadside assist for an unspecified amount of time. It is also offered with pre-paid scheduled maintenance service for three or five years.

Once you’ve paid the vast cost of entry, it’s nice to know you will get some stuff for free, like your first seven years of servicing, including all parts and labour, carried out by trained Ferrari technicians, who even dress like pit crew. It’s called 'Genuine Maintenance', and is genuinely Kia-challenging in its scope.