Mercedes-Benz SL-Class vs Lamborghini Huracan

What's the difference?

The SL's overall score is somewhat skewed by everyday concerns, and rules are rules - an average punter will find the price of this car somewhat confusing and the devil-may-care attitude to fuel consumption bewildering.

If neither of these things are a problem, then the SL63 makes plenty of - well, not sense, because it's not a particularly clever or considered car - but it fills a niche that not so long ago we all thought would go the way of the dodo.

The fact it sells so few examples is betrayed by some of the cabin amenities and the fact that Mercedes hasn't put much effort into reducing the car's weight to improve its consumption or sharpen up the handling.

The fact it still exists at all is pretty damn cool, though, and for certain people an SL63 purchase is the culmination of a lot of hard work.

If it is your dream car, the SL63 won't disappoint. Everyone who rode with me said it was mightily impressive, but you've got to really want it. When you're not far off buying a Ferrari California T or Aston Martin V12 Vantage S for the money, you'll need a real yearning for the three-pointed star to go this way. And if you do, good luck to you - you've probably worked quite hard to get here.

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.

The SL has always been completely unapologetic about its size and seems to be designed to accentuate rather than hide its length and width. The long bonnet screams power and prestige, and get out of my way, and is reminiscent of the little-loved McLaren SLR project of some years ago.

The size of the Mercedes logo on the huge front grille leaves you in little doubt about the brand of car that’s about to pass you at speed and some might say (okay, I would) that its large surface area is a little vulgar.

Like the SLR, the design doesn't seem to have a particularly cohesive strategy, with a number of Mercedes elements from around the traps that climb over each other. Roof up it looks awkward because of the gigantic posterior while with the roof down it looks overly long and, again, tail-heavy.

Folding hardtops are notoriously cumbersome and need a lot of room to hide them, but the silent operation is something to behold.

Elements that are worth deleting if possible are the dodgy 'Biturbo' badges. It's that kind of bling that gets people raising their little finger at you.

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.

“Practicality” is about as relevant to this car as a code of ethics is to a drug dealer or a contract killer, because the SL63 buyer is hardly worried about cupholders and boot space. For what it's worth, there are four cupholders in the two-seater cabin (which might explain why owners aren't worried about their liquid carrying prospects) and a minimum boot space of 364 litres and a maximum - with roof up - of 504, which is actually not bad.

Cleverly, there's a little robot-operated luggage cover inside the deep boot that stops your gear from being crushed when the roof goes down.

There's also space in the long doors where you might secrete a bottle of wine that would get a NSW Premier fired if he thanks you for it, and a bin in the console to hide your phone.

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.

Well, considering every Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato will almost certainly go up in value and become a collector’s item you’d have to consider them good value, at least in investment terms.

On the other hand, any car with a price tag of $503,949, before on-road costs, sits somewhat adjacent to the word “value”.

That large number has not put enthusiasts off, however, with all 1499 of the limited-run Sterrato Huracans already sold, and a long list of people with their names down hoping that someone gets scared and changes their mind, apparently. 

Our vehicle came with two built-in cameras, which you could operate through the touchscreen to record Tik Tok-length videos of your driving.

This is almost certainly a cost option, but no one could tell us exactly, and all of the cars are already sold, no doubt to people who ticked every single option box.

Oh, and you do get aluminium floor mats. Nice.

The SL63 is powered by Mercedes’ increasingly famous V8, with two turbos along for the ride to add oomph and cut the car's famous consumption, at least slightly. The 5.5-litre unit produces a massive 430kW and a scarcely believable 900Nm of torque.

All of that heads rearward via a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission that helps sling the 4.6m, 1848kg machine to 100km/h in 4.1 seconds.

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.

Much as is the case with the price, there's no real way to soften the blow here - the SL63 drinks like a footballer on Mad Monday, except it does it every day. The official combined cycle figure of 10.2L/100km is quite easy to double, as we did, averaging 21L/100km in mostly flowing suburban traffic. In the car’s defence, the accelerator pedal spent a good deal of time near the firewall.

The SL does have stop-start to help reduce its considerable environmental impact.

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.

There are a number of impressive things about the way the SL drives. Firstly, astronauts will be familiar with the galactic thrust of the V8. It seems endless, seamless and ready to sling the big coupe into the outer atmosphere. Few engines of any kind can match the relentless go on offer in the SL and much of the credit should go to the seven-speed twin-clutch transmission.

When you jump on the brakes and shift down, the exhaust keeps the show going with angry crackles and pops.

Containing a torque figure like the twin-turbo V8's requires a lot of electro-trickery to stop you from being launched off the road. The great thing about all that stuff is that it works unobtrusively and smoothly.

Mashing the carpet in an SL without traction control would create much sound and smoke but little forward progress, such is the twist on tap. The SL has a range of modes from full-nanny (which is meant to keep you on the slippery Alpine road you've chosen to get you to some Swiss ski resort) while turning the dial all the way around to Race loosens the bonds.

It's in this mode you'll have the most fun and it does seem that the intermediate settings are a bit of a waste of time. Race mode does little to diminish the amazing ride quality provided by the active suspension setup, but relaxes the reins on the huge rear tyres. Exiting roundabouts is suddenly a huge laugh, with the tail cheerfully breaking traction and the two-mode exhaust thundering in a most pleasant way.

Better still is that when you jump on the brakes and shift down, the exhaust keeps the show going with angry crackles and pops, with more on the way when you lift off. There's little to match the aural pleasures of a properly tuned V8 and Mercedes has resisted the temptation to quieten it down on the outside and generate a fake noise for the inside. Although that would be stupid in a convertible, if you think about it.

The SL63, despite its AMG badge, isn't about all-out handling, of course. The Ferrari California would definitely show it how it’s done on a winding country road. The SL is more about flow, building momentum and rarely shifting down to second gear. The monstrous torque is enough to keep things rolling but should you wish for a bit more of the exhaust bellow, second is there for the taking.

Hustling the big convertible feels wrong, not because it can't do it, but because it's not really what it's for. Having said that, it offers a kind of fun that nothing else on Earth will provide, not even a Bentley GTC.

With the roof up, the SL63 is a quiet place but not remarkably so. The huge sticky tyres do the cabin's hush no favours, with an annoying roar on a wider range of surfaces than you might expect.

Roof down, it's hardly a paragon of virtue. A lot of wind noise reaches the cabin, even well below the huge speeds the SL can reach. So if you want to talk, it's windows up you'll need to deploy the mesh screen that bridges the roll hoops.

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?

In a V10-engined supercar you’re meant to drive on dirt? You’ve come to the wrong place.

Okay, so there’s no crash rating, and there won’t be, but you do get AEB, driver, passenger, and side airbags along with knee airbags as well as front and rear-specific collapsible areas, reinforcement bars in the doors. Oh, and Electronic Stability Control. 

The SL63 is covered by Mercedes' three-year/unlimited kilometre warranty. And, er, that's it.

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.