Lamborghini Huracan STO 2020 review

This fastest, most hardcore take on the Huracan borrows much from the Super Trofeo race car. We drive it in prototype guise The ultimate incarnation of Lamborghini’s most successful model of all time. The STO will be the fastest road-legal version of the Huracán. It's set to outshine even the mighty Performante and is designed for hard use on track. STO stands for Super Trofeo Omologata, with this being – as close as is possible – a road-legalised version of Lamborghini’s Super Trofeo race car. The company’s engineers are proudest of the STO’s aerodynamic transformation, with both a huge downforce peak and significant contribution at the speeds more useful for driving on track. There are no active elements, but the combination of a redesigned front end, huge diffuser and a three-position adjustable rear wing means the STO makes up to 450kg at 174mph. That’s 100kg more than the Performante’s maximum, which came at 193mph.Weight has also been saved, although most of it because the STO uses rear drive rather than the all-wheel drive of the Performante. More mass has been trimmed with magnesium alloy wheels, titanium rear arches and a one-piece front-hinged carbon clamshell. The cabin features a half-cage, carbon-shelled sports seats and floor mats in place of the fitted carpets. Lamborghini also says thinner glass makes the windscreen 20% lighter than the one in the Performante. On the company’s numbers, the STO weighs 1339kg dry – 43kg less than the Performante. As with every other Huracán, the STO is powered by a naturally aspirated V10 designed to give its best at stratospheric revs. With 631bhp, this produces the same peak output as the Performante, but the maximum 416lb ft of torque is 27lb ft less. Lamborghini says the STO’s engine has been tuned to improve throttle response – hardly a criticism of any previous Huracán – and to sharpen its top-end soundtrack. Other mechanical changes are as you would expect – stiffened suspension with new bushes and anti-roll bars, firmer settings for the active dampers and bespoke Bridgestone Potenza tyres that will be offered in both road-biased and track-biased varieties. Motorsport-grade CCM-R ceramic brakes are fitted and claimed to offer four times better thermal conductivity than regular carbon-ceramic discs and a 25% increase in braking power.The STO also gets what initially seems the counter-intuitive combination of fixed-ratio steering – without the option of the variable rack of other Huracáns – and active rear-wheel steering to sharpen responses. It also has active torque vectoring. The Anima dynamic controller gets three new modes to match the car’s toughened character: STO is for road use, Trofeo for a dry track and Pioggia for use in the wet.