We chatted with Italian-born, Washington D.C.-based Alessandro Farmeschi, COO of Lamborghini America when he was in Vancouver to promote the launch of the new URUS, the brand’s first SUV.
LM: I feel like this new URUS sports utility vehicle is perfect for the Vancouver market because of the fact that we’ve got all of this wonderful mountainous terrain and spectacular highways such as the Sea-to-Sky highway up to Whistler.
AF: Yes, that’s the best. (Driving the URUS to somewhere such as Whistler) comprises the driving experience, the emotions of driving, plus skiing and having fun. It’s the perfect combination.
LM: Which features do you think would make the URUS ideal for that type of road?
AF: Driving up to Whistler is ideal because you can use the typical Lamborghini driving modes (that’s Race, Sport and Corsa) where the car gets “excited” because you can have the highest emotion in driving the car with the corner and the speed agility.
And then the car has all the highest cutting-edge technology: The active damping system, adaptive air suspension, four-wheel steering system, four-wheel drive system, active torque vector that acts on the back of the car and gives the torque to the side of the car that needs more push to turn the car faster.
Then, say, you arrive close to the mountain and you come across snow. At that point the car lifts and goes up to create higher clearance, suspension gets softer and then at that point you have all the systems helping the driver to perform at the highest level with the highest sensitivity in all the sensors of the car.
In the middle of the car there’s an initial platform with three gyroscopes and there’s a “brain” there that manages all the signals and gives the responses to all the electronic units to manages the various levels of the driving experience. So this results in emotion for the driver who can concentrate on driving and having fun in the safest way.
The car has the highest safety standards, has an advanced driver support system that helps the driver in difficult situations (for instance warning up front if there’s an obstacle, helping the driver if there is someone overtaking it and alerting drivers if there are hidden corners). There are all these features that are typical of a regular SUV but are tailored to Lamborghini.
LM: What would you say are the components that are typical of Lamborghini that are found in this vehicle?
AF: The power, the suspension setting, the lightweight body structure, the Lamborghini design with all of the lines.
If you see the URUS from the side you see it is one continuous curve that helps the car to perform much better in terms of aerodynamics.
And then you have the four-wheel steering and the suspensions, the carbo surrounding breaks that are typical in our supersport car and you have the tires, obviously, that have been designed from Pirelli in a partnership that originates since the beginning of Lamborghini, where we developed the tires to perform at the highest level within the package of the car.
Everything has been developed with the purpose to perform at the highest level.
The Lamborghini URUS will hit the Canadian market in August 2018.
