{"id":94560,"date":"2015-05-27T14:03:49","date_gmt":"2015-05-27T18:03:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=94560"},"modified":"2015-05-27T14:15:20","modified_gmt":"2015-05-27T18:15:20","slug":"lamborghini-gives-urus-suv-the-green-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2015\/05\/lamborghini-gives-urus-suv-the-green-light\/","title":{"rendered":"Lamborghini Gives Urus SUV the Green Light"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lamborghini first revealed the Urus SUV concept at the 2012 Beijing Motor Show.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/em><\/strong>Put Lamborghini on the fast-growing list of luxury automakers adding an SUV to their product lines. The maker is officially confirming plans to produce a version of the Urus concept vehicle it first unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show in April 2012.<\/p>\n

Expect to see the high-performance ute reach showrooms sometime in 2018, Lambo joining such high-end brands as Porsche, Bentley, Maserati, Rolls-Royce and likely Aston Martin who will by then be selling SUVs pushing well into the six-figure price range.<\/p>\n

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Your Source for Auto News!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lamborghini\u2019s move comes as little surprise. It has been toying with the idea for a number of years and come close to giving the Urus project the green light on several previous occasions. It recently pulled back, however, blaming that on the Italian government which had been dangling the idea of incentive money if the luxury ute were to be built in Italy.<\/p>\n

That now appears to be the case. The Lamborghini Urus will be assembled at the same plant in Sant\u2019 Agata \u2013 near the headquarters of rivals Ferrari and Maserati \u2013 that produces the current Gallardo, Huracan and Aventador models. About 500 jobs will be created, Lambo said.<\/p>\n

(Aston Martin lines up funds to put its DBX SUV concept into production. <\/em>Click Here<\/span><\/a> for more.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Lamborghini is holding back on many of the details, but expect something on the order of 700 hp with the Urus.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s actually the second time Lamborghini has gotten into the SUV market. Nearly three decades ago, it rolled out the sci-fi-like LM002. But production was minimal. The maker has big aspirations for the Urus, expecting to produce as many as 3,000 annually \u2013 roughly doubling its current production.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be a very important model for the Lamborghini brand,\u201d said Ian Fletcher, principal analyst for IHS Automotive. \u201cNot only will it broaden its product portfolio away from high end nice sports cars in to the growing\u2026SUV segment, but also go some way to smoothing out the demand cycle of its product portfolio.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could well also bring new customers to the brand which may find the dramatic styling of Lamborghini products appealing, but find its typical sports cars restrictive,\u201d Fletcher added.<\/p>\n

A number of questions remain. While all-wheel-drive is a certainty \u2013 and already in the Lambo toolkit, it remains to be seen whether the Urus will get its own unique platform or share its \u201carchitecture\u201d and other components with other members of the big Volkswagen AG family. It could, for example, reach out to Bentley which is expected to launch the production version of its Bentayga SUV later this year.<\/p>\n

(Bentley giving serious thought to adding a second SUV to its line-up. <\/em>Click Here<\/a> for the latest.)<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n

The Italian maker is all but certain to use one of its own engines in the production Urus, but might it offer other options, as well? Bentley, for example, plans to add a plug-in hybrid version of the Bentayga.<\/p>\n

A report by BBC\u2019s Top Gear quotes Lamborghini engineering chief Maurizio Reggiani as suggesting we won\u2019t see extensive use of carbon fiber, unlike the direction the maker is moving with its passenger car models. But aluminum could be an alternative, especially as Lambo\u2019s immediate parent, Audi AG, is big on the lightweight metal.<\/p>\n

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How much of the Urus concept will carry over into the production model is unclear.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Look for some serious off-road capabilities but, like the Porsche Cayenne, don\u2019t think Lambo will sacrifice much in the way of on-road performance. Reggiani indicated the Urus might have such features as electronic anti-roll, active damping, variable ride height, possibly even four-wheel steering and torque vectoring.<\/p>\n

As for design, Urus was, if anything, almost staid compared to the traditional Lamborghini excess. But that could change by 2018.<\/p>\n

“We were always the bad boys in the car industry,\u201d Lambo CEO Stefan Winkelmann told Top Gear. \u201cWe have a responsibility to create something which is unexpected and ahead of the peoples’ dreams.”<\/p>\n

Perhaps one of the biggest questions is whether Lambo will stick with the name, Urus. It\u2019s taken plenty of ribbing since the 2012 Beijing Show and, much as Maserati abandoned the Kubang concept name in favor Levante, Lamborghini might find an alternative nameplate over the next three years.<\/p>\n

(Land Rover pushes the extremes with new, $200,000 Range Rover SVAutobiography. <\/em>Click Here<\/span><\/a> to check it out.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Add Lamborghini to the fast-growing list of luxury automakers adding an SUV to their product lines. The maker is officially confirming plans to produce a version of the Urus concept vehicle it first unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show in April 2012. The story from TheDetroitBureau.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[151],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94560"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94560"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=94560"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=94560"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=94560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}