Lamborghini green lights Urus SUV

It has just given the green light for its outrageous Urus as the world's luxury carmakers rush to satisfy the SUV craving with a range of models including future cars from Bentley and Maserati.

The Urus will not hit the road until 2017 but is already predicted to comfortably double production for the Italian brand, just as the Cayenne SUV did for Porsche. That points to sales of around 3000 a year.

It will lumber in above the Gallardo and Aventador with a body teased from Lamborghini's existing Urus concept car and a mechanical package based on the Volkswagen Group's MLB platform, which is designed to fit under the next-generation Audi Q7, Cayenne and Volkswagen Touareg.

Confirmation of the Urus future comes during Lamborghini's 50th birthday celebrations but it comes not from the Italian company's management but from Audi, which has ultimate control of Lamborghini.

"In the year 2017 we will start the third model range: the Urus. So, in the future, Lamborghini will continue to stand for exclusivity, uncompromising aerodynamics and sporty driving," says Rupert Stadler, chairman of Audi.

The Urus project first surfaced last year in the run-up to the Beijing auto show, where the bright-red concept was shown for the first time. It's big and brutal but has an edginess family to all Lamborghini products and a nose which picks up hints from the Gallardo and Aventator.

Stadler says Lamborghini "has to do it" and development of the Urus is "on track". There is no confirmation yet of the Urus's engine, but it is highly likely to be a turbocharged V8 with hybrid electric booster to liberate around 440kW.
It is expected to undercut the other VW Group SUVs on the weight front, by around 100 kilograms, by using carbon fibre in its body structure. The Urus should be around 4.9m in length but only 1.7m high, rolling on alloy wheels at least 20 inches in diameter.

And its name? Unlike other Lamborghini models, which are named after Spanish fighting bulls, Urus goes back further to the original ancestral name for the cattle which came before modern cows.

This reporter is on Twitter @paulwardgover