Best ever V10s: the Lamborghini Huracán's bulletproof V10 engine

How do you replace the most successful Lamborghini of all time? With an even better selling one. That’s why Lamborghini didn’t really meddle with the Gallardo’s ingredients. Though some of its floor and rear bulkhead were now carbon fibre, the rest was all aluminium construction. Four wheel drive returned. It looked pointy. And lying in the usual longitudinale posteriore position was the Audi shared 5.2-litre 90º V10.

Previously, internal politics dictated Audi’s V10 R8s were a few horsies down on the equivalent Lambo, but at launch the Huracán and second gen R8 were both pegged at 602bhp. And throughout its long life and 13 model variations (with four and rear wheel drive, hardtops, Spyders, lighter variants and facelifts) the V10 never went beyond the 631bhp it first attained in 2017’s Performante. Even the mutated STO special kept that (for modern times) modest output.

The car world has found truly bizarre things to do with this bulletproof V10, though. US tuner Underground Racing has routinely twin turbocharged them to 1,600... 2,000... and this year, 3,500bhp. Good for 240+mph over a quarter mile. Or there’s the Engler Desat, a 1,085bhp V10 quad bike. So if there’s so much headroom in the V10, why replace it with a twin turbo hybrid V8? Sure, the new Temerario revs to 10,000rpm and has pace to make an Aventador SVJ blush, but Lambo customers don’t strike us as in a hurry to downsize... anything.

We asked Lamborghini’s R&D boss Rouven Mohr why the bizarrely brilliant Huracán Sterrato off road supercar is the swansong for the company’s venerable V10. “In the last years of the Huracán, the power requests increased dramatically. Especially in the last four or five years, we had to admit that the 640 horsepower V10 was not state of the art performance,” he argued. “We were evaluating internally which engine we want to [continue with]. There was the V8, or there was a V6. We also considered a new V10, but to fulfil emission regulations it would lose 20 per cent of its power. It’s clear that the old V10 was at the end of the life cycle.”

Could be another case of ‘careful what you wish for’ here. No twin turbo Ferrari has yet attained the adoration of the nat-asp 458 Speciale. Look how well AMG’s V8 to 4cyl transition went. Voluntarily giving up a legendary engine in the name of more raw power is a bold strategy that often exposes just how characterful the old warhorse actually was. Meanwhile, the Huracán’s place in supercar history is assured, and it went out on some phenomenal highs – the Tecnica, STO and Sterrato were all absolute gems that cackled in the face of modern exhaust mufflers. RIP.

Lamborghini Huracán Sterrato

Price new (2023): £232,820
Price now: £230,000
Engine: 5,204cc V10, 602bhp @ 8,000rpm, 413Ib ft @ 2,000rpm
Transmission: 7spd DCT, AWD
Performance: 0-62mph in 3.4secs, 162mph
Weight: 1,470kg (dry)

Photography: Jonny Fleetwood & Alex Tapley