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Dec 22, 2023

2023 Lamborghini Huracán Tecnica Review: A Magnificent V10 Narcissist Machine

Though it is flawed, the Huracán Tecnica is about experience above everything

Though it is flawed, the Huracán Tecnica is about experience above everything else.

chrishasacamera

chrishasacamera

In a Lamborghini, you suffer for fashion. And when I was in the 2023 Lamborghini Huracán Tecnica, I suffered good.

From the moment my back crashed into the carbon fiber bucket seats, I knew. Especially when I couldn't see shit out of the thing. The car was not my accessory, I was its accessory. I was its trophy husband. Its sugar daddy. Or, more realistically, its broke boyfriend. My only job was to drive it around and show it off, spread the word of its brash styling and crackling V10. My enjoyment was secondary to its narcissism.

But when I found the right time, place, and road, the Lambo became special for me, the driver. Special enough that if the last thing you ever did was drive it, you would gladly stare oblivion in the eyes just for another chance at a golden, sun-kissed drive with the last of the V10s.

The Huracán Tecnica is something of an interesting experiment. Lamborghini reportedly took the Huracán STO (the equivalent of a banzai skydiver in Huracán terms) and chiseled off some of its rougher edges to make a better road-going supercar.

It retains the 631-horsepower 5.2-liter V10 and rear-wheel drive from the STO, as well as much of that car's suspension tuning, aggression, and overall calibration. Where it deviates is in its bodywork and practicality. Instead of a dedicated extraction vent for the radiators and two clamshells hanging over the aluminum-carbon frame, the Tecnica gets a frunk while retaining carbon fiber panels made specifically for it. If the STO is a 12 on the 10-point scale of crazy, the Tecnica still sits comfortably at a nine. Indeed boasting less downforce than the STO, think of the Tecnica as the GT3 Touring in relation to the full-on GT3 RS that is the STO.

The Tecnica has an endless rolodex of physics-defying dynamic tricks to call upon. The romantically-named combination of the yaw, pitch, and roll-sensing Lamborghini Piattaforma Inerziale with the Lamborghini Dinamica Veicolo Integrata overseeing driver inputs helps translate the streams of data coming from each corner of the Tecnica. That includes active magnetic dampers, rear-wheel steering, torque-vectoring via braking, and brake vectoring through the stability control to adjust the attitude of the car. Also, the Tecnica gets the fixed-ratio 13.4:1 STO steering rack compared to the variable ratio of the Evo. Still, all of it is playing a delicately orchestrated game to make you feel like a hero.

Whatever notion Lamborghini had of softening the experience disappears once you drop yourself into the carbon bucket seats. Inside, the Tecnica feels as crazy and deathcore as the STO. The door panels are from the STO, trimmed in carbon fiber with zero padding, while a red pull strap serves as the door handle falling from a slot in the carbon weave, and a black strap festooned with more carbon helps you pull the door closed. The dash is a mesa of Alcantara with carbon air vents protruding from it, and because they clearly had excess carbon at the factory, the dash trim is carbon fiber too.

Fantastically, the Alcantara steering wheel can be adjusted to practically touch my chest, allowing me to sink into the hard, hugging bucket seats. "Sgancio" is printed into the forward-back adjuster, which is the most beautiful way anything has ever said "release." Behind the steering wheel are column-mounted paddle shifters with a delicate but resounding action. Then, there's the 12.3-inch LCD gauge cluster that prominently displays the huge sweep of the V10's near-9,000 rpm redline and gear position, with other information being tucked into its corners.

But the most incredible thing is the view out. You cannot see anything. You can't even see the upper traffic signals in most intersections. It's absurd and borderline stupid but serves as a constant reminder of the object that you are in control of. For the shy, folks can't see you all too well while they gawk at the brutalist exterior. But even if they can't see you, they can certainly hear you.

That's the crux of the experience with the Tecnica. Everything starts and ends with the V10. It's a screaming reminder that the Tecnica is different from every single supercar on sale today and a haunting reminder of what we’ll be losing in the near future.

Sure, it's powerful. It's prodigiously torquey from idle to 8,500 rpm, producing thrust like a turbocharged engine but without the hesitation. Flooring it out of a corner is an exercise in manipulating gravity; feeling the rear tires scrabbling against sun-beaten pavement and pulling traction alchemically while the engine fights to break free. But it isn't the power that does it, it's the sound and ferocity with which it's delivered that makes the Huracán Tecnica feel like nothing else.

It's one of only three truly musical engines left on the planet. There's the Porsche 911 GT3's flat-six howl, the Ferrari V12's high-register power chord, and the harmonic complexity of the Huracán's V10. It has tonal texture, character, and vocal range. It sounds different from part-throttle to full-throttle at any part of the rev range but then has an extra bit of emotion and imperfection that tugs at your throat. Shifts from the dual-clutch are seamless in Strada and Sport mode but kick with an enormous power shift and crackle in the track-oriented Corsa.

The rest of the Tecnica is built to serve the engine. Whether it was the way the carbon fiber door panels resonate in sympathy with the howl of the V10 or how the side-mounted engine intakes gasped for air directly next to my ears, this car serves no higher power than emotion. It takes a while to calm down and feel the car in its totality, and understand what it's trying to achieve beyond being a music box.

Once I had a moment to come down from the full supercar-influencer-downshifting-in-a-tunnel attack that the Huracán had caused within me, there was the business of judging the handling of the mid-engined Lambo. This is where it becomes a very mixed bag.

Handling in the Tecnica is less of a question of driving feel but more of a question of competency. All of those onboard systems that control every corner of the car are tuned in a specific way, and that tuning is meant to make me feel superhuman but less connected. It's incredible what the car can achieve, with psychotic turn-in to match the papercut-sharp throttle response. But it all feels a little artificial to my well-traveled and weary hands.

My first point of contact, the steering, had a decently fast ratio but was exceedingly low-effort at all grip levels and steering angles. It was like Lamborghini dialed out all road feel and weight in exchange for the perception of lightness and responsiveness. Just a whisper of granularity traveled up the steering column, but with a virtually flat effort curve, it was impossible to understand the limit without an almighty huck into a corner.

Combined with the active dampers and rear-wheel steering (RWS), the less initiated will drive the Tecnica and be flabbergasted by its ability and agility. I’ll give credit to RWS for making the Tecnica feel unbelievably agile and lighter than its 3,400-pound curb weight might suggest. Up to three degrees of rear toe in either direction sharpens turn-in substantially while responding quickly enough to offer mid-corner stability. The RWS system is tuned beautifully, never giving away the fact that it's working hard but seamlessly enhancing the handling of the Tecnica.

The traction and stability control are also incredibly clever and tie in with the RWS. But even with the car set in its loosest Sport mode, the Tecnica is no wild animal. It's easy, too easy. There isn't enough information about what the car is doing beneath you, just a whole lot of stiff suspension damping and blind trust that the car will do as it's told no matter how badly I tried to drive it. It just wouldn't let me run free, always stabilizing, always seamlessly restricting performance so that influencers won't park them in west Los Angeles hedges. The only way to really feel the Tecnica is by clicking it into Corsa and turning the programs off.

Then it came alive. And beneath the layers of software, light steering, and general bullshit was the scintillating, edgy, antisocial supercar I was looking for from the start. The Huracán is a drift hooligan in a way that put me on my toes but rewarded commitment and had the brutality to match its exterior. It kicked and bucked but danced delicately about the edge of adhesion with a grace that felt magnitudes more natural than when the systems were fully on. RWS trickery still whirred away in the background, but it's dead clear to me that this car was tuned to be driven this way: All systems off, by the scruff of the neck, and toeing along the limit.

I may have suffered for fashion in the Tecnica, but it returns the favor handily on an empty road. It's not the very best there is, but it's an utterly unique experience that no other car can replicate. Most importantly, it has a personality that can't be described in words.

The 2023 Lamborghini Huracán Tecnica is magnificent. Not in that it's the most impressive supercar of the bunch, and it's certainly far from the best of them in terms of raw capability. But it has something that everyone else has lost.

The turbocharged V8s of Ferrari and McLaren just cannot match what the V10 puts into the world so effortlessly. It's fast as hell and doesn't need turbochargers to get that done. The Tecnica values the shades of gray within the screaming blacks and whites that make a supercar truly great, not just good. And it's actually quite bad at a few things. For example, the heater only seemed to work when it felt like it. And the supposed road comfort that the Tecnica promises is functionally nonexistent. The thing is loud and bumpy in real life.

But in the fantasy world of being the warden of a supercar for a few days with nothing but roads to drive and places to see, the Tecnica might be up there with the greats. I definitely suffered for fashion in the thing. And when I got out of it for the last time, a small something tugged at me. Even with its flaws, I longed to drive it just one more time.

Want to lament the death of the V10 with me? Email me at [email protected]