Lamborghini Huracan Tecnica 2022 review

This new mid-level Huracán derivative is intended to plug the gap between the regular Evo version of the car and the top-level STO hardcore special, the latter having been a car that the factory launched only tentatively, unsure as to whether customers would be willing to spend what was nearly Aventador money on a Huracán (guess what, reader: they have been). But the Tecnica’s price is much closer to heartland Huracán territory: it is pitched just above £200,000 in the UK, but is still cheaper than the entry sticker price of a McLaren 720S, and is considerably cheaper than a Ferrari 296 GTB. 

The car takes the 632bhp engine of an STO and its particular combination of a rear-wheel-drive chassis and standard four-wheel steering (which had never been offered on any Huracán before last year), and then delivers it in a slightly softer-sprung, more road-appropriate package that’s wrapped in a new-look body a little less shamelessly, jab-in-the-eye-aggressive as the STO’s styling unquestionably is. That’s the abridged version of Lamborghini’s character definition of this car, though I’m not totally sure I’m buying it. This is a better Huracán, without doubt - but it’s better thought of as a car with 95% of the outright circuit pace and wonderful unreconstructed rawness of the STO, for 75% of its purchase price.

Because, while it’s undoubtedly a little quieter, softer riding and generally gentler to drive than its range-mate at its most restrained, this is still a V10 Lamborghini: a car that’s at its best when you’re embracing its wild side, which is an act that isn’t for the shy and retiring. Given the noise these cars make and the stir they create almost everywhere they go, I can’t believe anyone wants a marginally more buttoned-down version they can use that tiny bit more often. It would be the most marginal of marginal gains; like recruiting Frankie Boyle’s slightly less controversial twin brother for after-dinner speaking on the gentlemen’s club circuit of Middle England.

The fact is, Lamborghini expects the majority of Tecnica customers to order their cars with the roll-over bar, figure-hugging sports seats and sticky Bridgestone track-day tyres that it offers as options, as if they were buying slightly dressed-down STOs, anyway. The car’s cabin has new lightweight carbonfibre door skins and is upholstered widely in race-car-cool Dinamica suede upholstery. And, while it has a new infotainment system with expanded connectivity features (navigation input via What3Words, voice control via Amazon Alexa), it retains those slightly imperfect, low-roofed driving ergonomics that make it a bit hard to see out of, and tricky to get entirely comfortable in, if you’re over six foot tall. 

I’m not a giant, but still, I’m not sure I want a Lamborghini that makes me perfectly comfortable at the wheel, as if it had been designed from the inside out rather than the other way around. Then again, I wouldn’t expect to use one like a normal everyday car anyway, even if I could afford to. Cars like this just aren’t of the normal, day-to-day world, and neither should they be. We should celebrate their extravagance while we can.

Thankfully, the Tecnica lets you do that too. It offers the usual Strada, Sport and Corsa driving modes to choose between when you’re off and going, and in the first of them it is certainly a softer-riding, quieter and better-mannered car than the STO is, should that be what you’re looking for from it. But Sport brings out that howling, crackling, bombastic soundtrack from the exhaust note that only a big atmospheric engine can conjure, and it instantly assumes such a compelling part of the car’s driving experience as to reframe it completely, and dominate it entirely.

The Huracán Tecnica’s power delivery is supremely crisp and linear, though it needs 4500rpm of crank speed before it’s ready to give the car top-level modern supercar performance. But from 4500rpm up to beyond 8000rpm, this V10 is as spectacularly demonstrative as it is savagely potent: a thrill of the sort that increasingly few performance engines can touch. The day that Lamborghini bids farewell to it will be such a sad one, and especially now we know that it’s definitely coming.

On the road, the Tecnica’s combination of rear-wheel drive and four-wheel steering goes some way to enlivening the accessibility of the Huracán’s handling appeal but doesn’t transform a car that has always needed driving hard to really come to life. Sport mode dials back the stability control and steps up the responsiveness of the four-wheel steering system, giving the chassis extra liveliness in tighter bends, but perhaps not the immediacy or outright agility of some supercars.

But on the track, where you can let that engine loose without troubling your conscience so much, the Tecnica’s handling balance is a delight. Corsa driving mode locks the rear wheels in line with the chassis, and brings extra sharpness and cackling brimstone from the engine. And while the outright tactile steering feel of the Huracán STO isn’t quite reproduced by the Tecnica, the car still gives you lots of confidence to explore the outer limits of its grip level, and to vividly enjoy and exploit a chassis that’s truly poised, precise and pleasingly forgiving.