Lamborghini Temerario review

Nowhere near as complicated to actually drive as the specifications might suggest, and that’s the genius of the Temerario. The various modes accessed from the clickwheel on the steering wheel are Città (city), Strada (road), Sport (… uh… Sport), and Corsa (Race), and can be paired with different energy modes in up to thirteen combinations to maximize the hybrid powertrain's potential.

We’ve not driven it on the road yet, but pottering about it seems genial and easy – and the eight-speed ‘box works very well either in auto mode or progressed through the large, comfy, column-mounted paddles. The interesting bits happen when you start to lengthen the reach up the revcounter, because 10k allows for a really lovely progression.

The e-motor in the transverse-mounted ‘box fills in the blanks before the turbos get up to speed, and boost is then progressive and linear. No great big clumps of torque to upset the car.

The gearbox has some torque-reaction plumbed in, so there’s a little jolt on upchanges to remind you of what’s going on, and the way it builds speed is immense; 193mph on Estoril’s short straight is not to be sniffed at. Interestingly, even when the relatively small battery is depleted, the car has nearly 800bhp just from the engine, and the battery recoups very quickly, so you never feel lacking in grunt.

All well and good if you’ve hired a racetrack, but for the other 364 days a year…

The fact remains that this is a road car; it feels more benign than you might think, helps you out more than you imagine. It’s not without teeth, but you have to switch everything off and be silly to get it to leave a mark.

And it’s worth remembering that ‘Sport’ is actually the mode in which the Temerario feels looser; it’s more RWD, where Corsa mode punches more with the front e-axle and gathers the car for quicker laps. So it feels more 911 Turbo than GT3 RS.

And the Bridgestone track-biased tyres – rather than the standard ‘Sport’ versions – make quite a lot of difference to lap times. Even if they’re not as sticky (or as fragile) as something like a dedicated Cup 2 R.

The drift modes are a bit of a head scratcher though: they work, trimming up a drift if you push the throttle too far, but you can still spin the car if you go in too hot, and can straighten the car up with a jolt if you’re not within the input parameters. The car’s pretty easy to oversteer anyway, so you do get the feeling that you’d be better off just getting some extra practice in and learning to do it properly.

What about the noise?

One thing that you lose when it comes to dropping from a naturally-aspirated engine to one with turbos is purity of song. Mainly because there are whumping great big impellers clogging up your exhaust. But the Temerario also has a V8 with a flat-plane crank, which sounds different to the glub-glub, off-beat cadence of a natural 90-degree V8.

Now, when your crankpins are arranged in 180-degree format (flat), you can generally get lighter weight and quicker/higher revving than a cross-plane V8, but they tend to vibrate more and lose some low-down torque – neither of which is much of a problem in a racing engine, which is where you’ll find more flat-plane applications.

But the Temerario has electric-infill to deal with the torque problem and clever NVH to sort out the wobbles. The problem here is that when the car is at low revs, it sounds a bit like a racing four-cylinder – purposeful but industrial-slash-practical. At higher revs it gets increasingly toothy, which is brilliant, but the greater proportion of driving time is likely to be at lower rpm, and therefore missing a little bit of the emotional response you want from a supercar. We suspect the aftermarket exhaust makers are going to be rubbing their hands at this one.