Lamborghini’s Rear-Wheel-Drive Huracan Evo Is More Fun (and Cheaper) Than the AWD Version

It may be less powerful than the “regular” Huracan Evo, but the RWD variant packs other delights.

Published December 3, 2020

Updated October 19, 2022

What Is It?

The cheapest way to get into a new Lamborghini in this day and age. Also, arguably, the most entertaining Lamborghini you can buy in this day and age, at least if you’re not concerned about racking up the fastest lap times or beating everything else from 0-60 miles per hour.

Is It New?

A little. The Huracan’s mid-life refresh brought with it the new suffix “Evo” — presumably to taunt all those Mitsubishi fanboys still sore over the loss of the Lancer Evolution — and a few changes designed to make the car’s performance a bit more accessible.

And a bit more, well, more: the 5.2-liter V10’s power was increased a bit, and the design tweaked to both add downforce and make this Lambo even visually louder, whether it’s rapidly growing in your rearview mirror or howling away as it blasts by.

But the biggest update, to hear Lamborghini tell it, is “Lamborghini Dinamica Veicolo Integrata” — a new central processing unit that reads all the inputs and settings of the car’s myriad computers and uses them to predict what’s going to happen next, enabling the car better put the power down and stay pointed in the right direction —thus making it easier for average Joes and Janes to make the most of its capability.

While those changes first arrived in the all-wheel-drive Huracan, in calendar year 2020, they’ve migrated over to the rear-wheel-drive version.

What Makes It Special?

As with the previous iteration of the Huracan, the RWD model’s power is down a bit versus its sibling’s — 601 horses vs the AWD’s 631 — and the loss of traction to the front wheels means it’ll never be able to match the AWD version’s reality-distorting 0-60-mph acceleration. But it does enable the car to drift and burn rubber in a way that other Huracans — or even Aventadors — can’t.

How Does It Drive?

Few cars, perhaps, suffer a greater disparity between the places they feel most at home and the places they’re most likely to be driven than Lamborghinis. The Huracan lives to be thrashed around race tracks and along winding roads; sadly, most of them will spend their lives toiling about the streets of places like London, Dubai and Miami, where their engines rev not in the pursuit of the perfect corner exit but in hopes of attracting attention from the plebes.

Even so, I still felt a little bad about the fact that I was barely able to take the Huracan beyond the bounds of New York City during my weekend with it. (Blame unfortunate timing — I’d set the dates for the loan months earlier, not realizing then that I’d be moving that weekend.)

The city certainly presented its fair share of both tribulations and triumphs for the Lambo: the piss-poor visibility (even by supercar standards) made parking and maneuvering in dense traffic nerve-wracking, and every crash or scrape from an unavoidable pothole or curb induced an audible wince; on the other hand, the sound the engine made blasting through tunnels and skyscraper canyons was practically a religious experience, and few cars draw more attention from jaded New Yorkers than a Lambo with a dripping yellow paint job.

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During the brief moment I managed to escape from New York with the Lambo, other characteristics began to shine through. The roads and parking lots were too crowded to make the most of the RWD Evo’s hoon-happy traits — it has a burnout mode, for God’s sake — but it was enough to appreciate the added feedback in the steering that comes with the front wheels not having to worry about taking on power.

And while you may not be able to run with 911 Turbos off the line without all-wheel-drive, once you’re moving, the Huracan is potent enough to hang with just about anything else on the street — and more playful than quite a few competitors.

What’s It Like Inside?

Tight, but cool. Amazingly, the interior of the Huracan Evo manages to match the exterior’s vivacious design. The seats in my tester were wild, carbon fiber-framed pieces of design that looked like they’d been ripped from some science fiction starfighter, all the way down to the ejection seat-style metal handles in front that bear the word “SGANCIO” on them. (They’re there to let you move the seat back and forth, but their English translation — “release” — seems awfully close to “eject.”)

Those seats are a bit aggressive for those of us who are long of limb — I once spent a week living out of a Huracan with other seats, so I know it’s not an issue with the interior — as is entry and exit, but that’s par for the course with any supercar.

A more unique annoyance, however, might be the new touchscreen infotainment system, mounted above the nuclear launch button of the start/stop. It proved rather finicky from the get-go; the first time I started driving and tried to adjust the volume — a process that requires pulling up a submenu and tapping or dragging a virtual slider, a far more frustrating system than, y’know, a knob — it refused to respond, leaving me stuck with the blaring music. The problem didn’t repeat itself in my brief time with the car, but if it happened once, it could certainly happen again.

What’s It Cost?

Furthering the case for the Huracan Evo: it’s the most affordable Lamborghini on sale today. Granted, that’s not to say we can all go out and buy one: the base price of $214,866 is enough to buy a cottage in the Catskills, or fill a three-car garage with other venerable machines.

Still, for roughly that kind of money, you’d be hard-pressed to find any new car that can match the Huracan Evo for a sense of drama and pack as many smiles-per-mile in. And at the end of the day…isn’t that why you buy a Lamborghini?

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