Toyota Tundra vs Lamborghini Huracan

What's the difference?

The Toyota Tundra, made in America for Americans, was launched in 1999 and since then Toyota Australia has fielded a steady stream of enquiries from car buyers and automotive media about the possibility of its full-size US pickup being available in local showrooms.

Production of RHD Tundras at Toyota’s San Antonio plant in Texas never stacked up as a viable business case for Toyota until 2015, when the Walkinshaw Automotive Group (WAG) commenced OEM-certified right-hand-drive remanufacturing of Ram pick-up trucks (and later Chevrolet Silverados) in Melbourne.

This development finally opened the door to an ‘Australianised’ version of the Tundra, which went on sale late last year after a six-year joint development program with WAG that was a world-first for Toyota.

The Tundra’s local two-model range comprises the entry-level Limited and the new top-shelf Platinum grades, with more power and torque than local ‘1500 class’ US pickup rivals. So, we recently put the fresher Premium model to work for a week, to see how it measures up from a tradie’s perspective.

Lamborghini is a brand built on madness, excess and eye-searing design. Its cars don’t have to make sense, and indeed its owners probably prefer it if they don’t - they have other vehicles to use for the real world.

So, the existence of the new Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato, the world’s first 'All-terrain Supercar', a V10-engined mad machine built to drive sideways at high speed on dirt, should not come as a surprise.

And yet it really does, because there’s never been anything like it before (yes, Porsche has built the 911 Dakar, but it’s more of a sand-dune-climbing, desert-crossing motorsport tribute), for the very good reason that no one ever considered it would be a good idea. 

It also sounds just a touch intimidating, the kind of driving experience that would require pro rally driver skills to survive, so it was with some trepidation that we headed to Palm Springs, USA, to test out the new Huracan Sterrato.