2024 Lamborghini Huracán Sterrato First Drive Review

The Lamborghini Huracán Sterrato is the culmination of a series of one-off teases and concepts that Lamborghini has been dangling in front of enthusiasts for a few years – a high(er) riding, knobby-tired and off-road ready take on the car that’s helped Lamborghini increase its market share by leaps and bounds over the last few years. It’s also one of the most insane Lambos we’ve ever seen, and considering some of the bonkers production vehicles that have come out of Sant‘Agata in the past, that’s saying something,

Coupling the knowledge gained in developing the Urus SUV – much of the Urus’ team pivoted to the Sterrato (“dirt road”)—with a mid-engined supercar has culminated in a supercar-slash-dune buggy that has the chops to obliterate both the warm tarmac at the Chuckwalla raceway in central California, and the desert that surrounds it.



To enable it to do so, Lamborghini has softened the dampers, lengthened the springs, and added some reinforced plastic underbody protection. Now, you’re looking at just under seven inches of ground clearance. Add a set of plastic fender flares and – optional – front rally lights plus Bridgestone Dueler AT002 tires developed specifically for the Sterrato wrapped with special 19” wheels, and it points to the Sterrato being much more than smoke and mirrors. Yes; the roof-mounted light bar seen on the concept is now gone as it obstructed the top-mounted air intake, but that’s OK as it seemed a little too try-hard even for a vehicle this wild.



While you might think this means a whole lot more added weight, it's only about 10 kilos, and there’s a good reason why. You see, the Sterrato has been built to conquer fast fine gravel and sand, not ultra-choppy off-road trails. As a result, Chief Technical Officer Rouven Mohr and his team didn’t have to add a load of heavy chassis mods to make the Sterrato excel in its intended environment.

“The biggest thing was to find the perfect balance,” says Mohr. “We’re always coming from the street side and doing as much on the off-road side as needed, but as little as possible because we didn’t want to lose the character of the car.”

We’ll get to the juicy on- and off-road stuff in a minute. What you feel as soon as you set off in the Sterrato is a supercar that, thanks to a softer chassis setup, is much more usable on everyday roads. Speedbumps are more easily dispatched, while road imperfections (including potholes) and steep driveways aren’t as much of a problem. Since Lamborghini worked so closely with Bridgestone, the tires aren’t as loud as you may think considering their offroad-ready tread pattern. According to Bridgestone, they delivered a specifically-tweaked tire compound and precision sipes for more traction on the rougher stuff, as well as a W-rating and 270 km/h top speed – a first on a production car.



Power from the 5.2-litre V10 is rated at 602 horsepower and 413 pound-feet of torque, enough to have the Sterrato grab you and slam you into the seatback whether on the track or the trail.

Lamborghini has recalibrated the perfectly-named Lamborghini Dinamica Veicolo system that decides which axle gets the most torque. They made it so that with lighter throttle inputs, more power is sent rearwards to get the tail swinging, then gets bumped forward to help control the drift. The result is a mid-engined supercar that is a masterclass on just how far you can take the platform.

That all sounds fantastic on paper, but what’s truly mind-boggling is just how well it works in practice.

Lamborghini turned Chuckwalla into both a dirt and tarmac track for this event, mimicking a world rally stage involving both surfaces on a single run.



In “sport”, the Sterrato feels almost exactly like the EVO AWD version with which it’s most closely linked. Power comes on absolutely immediately, the naturally-aspirated V10 sending the tach needles spinning ‘round to the 8,500 RPM redline in a hurry. You have to be quick with the enormous shift paddles to stay on top of this thing – it will get away from you. It does all this with no shortage of drama – you could imagine (actually, you can’t – not really) the banshee howl a naturally aspirated V10 makes as it hollers its way to redline and forward progress is so fast (the 0-97 km/h sprint takes just 3.4 seconds) that you’d have no idea you were in something off-roady.

While you start to feel the slightly higher centre of gravity and softened suspension through the bends, a good Sterrato driver will learn to use that to their advantage for an even more engaging drive.



“We started with the character of a super sports car,” said Mohr. “We went so far in all the disciplines that the car is capable to transfer as much as possible of that feeling in sliding conditions.” In other words: they built this car for the driver to have some fun.

Which they will have no problem doing – especially on the slippery stuff, where the Sterrato is almost telepathic in its execution.

Transitioning from the tarmac to the dirt and flipping the wheel-mounted drive mode button to “rally”, it’s almost as if the car starts thinking for you, and drifts start happening without you even realizing it, or having to drop gobs of opposite lock.



This is where the Sterrato differs from the offroad-ready Porsche 911 Dakar, a car it will inevitably be compared with. As we found out when we drove one, the Dakar is an absolute riot in the sand but compared to the Sterrato, it just feels more serious. Indeed, having won the Paris-Dakar Rally outright twice, the Porsche has a bit of a reputation to uphold: excelling in a vast array of off-road conditions. That’s why when we tested that vehicle, we swapped the track for some slower, steeper off-roading and some more serious gravel, not to mention the sand dunes.

With the Sterrato, Lambo hasn’t set out to build another Dakar. “The intention was not to be an off-road Huracán where you can climb (rocks),” remarked Mohr. They’ve built a supercar that can cover just that much more ground and put ear-to-ear grins not just on the driver, but on whoever comes in contact with it.

Which, I have to say, is 100 per cent job done.

2024 Lamborghini Huracán Sterrato

BODY STYLE: Two-door performance coupe

DRIVE METHOD: mid-engine/ all-wheel drive
ENGINE: 5.2-litre V10, 602 hp, 413 lb-ft of torque

FUEL ECONOMY CITY/HIGHWAY/COMBINED: N/A
TRANSMISSION: 7-speed dual-clutch automatic

CARGO CAPACITY: 100 litres

Base MSRP: $364,550

WEBSITE: Lamborghini Huracán Sterrato