2020 Lamborghini Huracan EVO

If you want to escape the gloom of the Coronavirus then a Lamborghini Huracan EVO is a great way to do it.

It is an antidote to boredom and anxiety because it floods your body with feel-good endorphins and overpowering adrenaline.

Lots of people stop and look. And they smile and wave. It’s that kind of car.

When you have the wheel, and there is 470 kiloWatts ready to whack you in the back and off to 100km/h in 2.9 seconds, the driver has the biggest smile.

The Huracan already qualifies as something special in the exclusive and exotic class for Ferrari-McLaren-Lamborghini supercars thanks to a 300-plus top speed, outrageous bodywork, painted-to-the-road cornering grip and a soundtrack that comes straight from a Hollywood superhero blockbuster. You hear the Huracan a long time before you see it, even when its vee-10 engine is just idling though a carpark.

Upgrading to the Huracan EVO brings, apart from a price-tag that easily tops $500,000, more power, slightly sharper looks, an improved infotainment system and rear-wheel steering to complement an IA driver-assistance system called Lamborghini Dinamica Veicola Integra. It brings all the electronic controls together to make the car quicker but less intimidating, providing a nice safety net.

The Huracan is all about driving, but the basics are worth covering. It’s a strict two-seater with wraparound buckets, has a tiny ‘boot’ in the nose, comes with great headlights and a wickedly exciting starter button that mimics the trigger for a jet-fighter’s missile system.

What’s not so good is what’s missing, even though it’s standard on a Hyundai i30, and costs more than you expect. That includes $1450 for a cupholder, $3850 for a reversing camera and $6480 for a smartphone interface including Apple CarPlay.

My test car comes in at $520,461, without adding the on-road charges, but among the options are fantastic carbon-ceramic brakes that cost ‘only’ $2400. Well, that’s only an ‘only’ compared with the reversing camera.

The Huracan is racetrack rapid but can be surprisingly tame on the road. There are three driving modes and the car is complaint and not overly noisey until you switch up to sport or track, making it easy to wheel along a freeway where the fuel economy can drop as low as 7.5 litres/100km.

Everything changes on a twisty road, where the rear-steer system makes the EVO one of the most eager supercars I’ve driven through tightening curves. It just follows the wheel, turns and then goes.

It’s not a car for everyone, or every day, but the Huracan EVO provides a truly memorable drive.

It wouldn’t be my first choice, but if I had something more mundane for weekday work then it would be a perfect choice as a weekend escape machine.