I’m not fooled. Not one bit. I know the 2020 is packed from pointy nose to upward-slanting tail with a bunch of technological gizmos that make it faster around the track than ever. But in an age of turbocharged and even hybrid everything, this car is still decidedly old school. And that’s what I love about it.

I tend to think of the supercar narrative as having an intense push and pull motion. On one end there are designers and engineers who work fanatically, pushing the envelope of what’s dynamically possible in their cars. A year when I think we’ve reached the pinnacle of speed and performance is another year that I’m proven wrong.

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On the other, there’s also a pulling away from what was and what used to be.

(Lamborghini flew me out to Los Angeles to drive its new car. The company put me up in a swanky Santa Monica hotel and fed me continuously. Then it bused me out to Big Willow, which it had rented out for us that day. Then it helicoptered us back to Santa Monica. Fancy Kristen was pleased. Regular Kristen was slightly air sick.)

That pulling away, that departure, is where a sense of profound anxiety and obsession over what is being left behind stems from. Behind the wheel of the Evo, that sense is more tangible than ever.

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It’s 2019 and the amount of naturally aspirated, mid-engined supercars can be counted easily on one hand. Two of them even come from the same automaker and one of those shares an engine with the third. And the last is the relatively late arrival to the scene, the .

We find ourselves in an age that relies more and more heavily on electrification and other technological wizardry to create cars faster and more efficient than ever before. It’s an age the Huracán Evo currently resides in, but rather than give itself over to it wholly, the car appears to be a duality, straddling both this current era and the one that preceded it.

Just 15 years ago, the Evo’s recipe might not have earned it any extra-ordinary emphasis. But the fact that it still exists in today’s climate of hybridization and turbocharging, it stands out.

Free-Breathing Origins

With the new car, Lamborghini retired the alphabet soup naming system but did keep the wedge-shaped look. The Evo’s features are more sharply angled and evil than ever. It now has all-wheel steering and a very clever onboard system called the Lamborghini Dinamica Veicolo Integrata.

Basically, it’s a computer that precisely monitors all of the things the car’s up to (acceleration, roll, pitch, yaw, etc) and adjusts the torque vectoring, traction control and all-wheel drive for optimal driving.

Despite all the new tech, though, the car is ideologically retro.

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The whole point of the Evo lives behind the driver. This is where the heart from the Huracán LP 640-4 Performante beats. It’s a 5.2-liter naturally aspirated V10 with 640 horsepower and 443 lb-ft of torque. That works out to 123 HP per liter and a sky-high redline of 8,250 rpm. This is what makes the car so special.

The V10 fires up with a roaring bark and an angry snap of hot air that shoots out of the raised exhaust tips. I know this because it caught me full in the face when I was crouched down behind one, trying to get a photo.

Sitting in it, with the cabin awash in Alcantara, you can feel that engine, the life blood of the Evo, vibrating through the back of your seat and rattling your teeth in your head. Putting it in Sport mode only turns up the noise and vibration.

Evolution Isn’t a Bad Thing

Modern Lamborghinis are notorious for growing long in the tooth, but in this case it is not a bad thing. Not especially when you consider what’s nestled between the two axles. The very idea of high-revving, naturally aspirated V10 is quite un-evolved, even if it is outfitted with the latest technology to coax out more power and efficiency.

Alessandro Farmeschi, Lamborghini’s CEO of the Americas, told me during the media launch that natural aspiration is the current solution. The dynamics, the sound—these are key to the experience. “This doesn’t mean there won’t be hybrids,” he said, however. Does that really come as a shock?

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It’s easy to get swept up in what you’re afraid of losing. Recall the one very memorable . The naturally aspirated V12 Vantage. The car is making all sorts of beautiful noises, soaring through beautiful landscapes. And then Clarkson speaks.

“What it makes me feel, though, is sad,” he declares. “I just can’t help thinking that... cars will this will soon be consigned to the history books. I just have this horrible, dreadful feeling that what I am driving here is an ending.”

“Goodnight,” he says after a pause for his words to take effect. And that’s how Season 13 ends. The first time I saw it, it left me with a sense of unspeakable dread.

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Here’s the thing though. As much as naturally aspirated cars are amazing and sound like God, nobody said that what would come next would be worse. Just different.

Progress

Let us revisit the fact that cars are faster and more powerful than ever today. Ferrari recently dropped a that makes almost 1,000 HP without breaking a sweat. Just because one aspect of a certain frontier closes doesn’t mean the whole thing suddenly comes off track. Supercars are just as obsessed with motion these days as they were in 2003, only the execution has changed.

Different eras will be forever ending when it comes to cars because that’s just how evolution works. That’s how progress works. There is wistfulness, certainly, when faced with the departure of things we liked or perhaps took for granted, and there’s anxiousness as to what will happen next.

Cars like the Evo won’t be around forever. Clarkson is right about that. But when they go, they’ll go to usher in something bigger and better than what we’d have thought possible. And we’ll all be just fine.

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2020 Huracán Evo

2020 Huracán Evo

+

Fast as greased lightning and sounds incredible

-

Poor visibility (if you care)

TL;DR

Just buy it for the noise

Power

640 HP • 443 LB-FT

Weight

3,047 LBS

Price

$261,274

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