Lamborghini Urus Review: Three Days in Los Angeles, and What a Urus Is

The Urus, in the figures that matter here	Figure	What kind of number that is
Engine	4.0 V8	Twin-turbo, 3,996 cc. Lamborghini’s figure.
Power	650 CV	641 hp, on the Urus as Lamborghini launched it. The plug-in hybrid SE makes 800 CV.
0–100 km/h	3.6 s	Lamborghini’s figure, 0–62 mph. Quicker than it has any right to be at this size.
Top speed	305 km/h	About 190 mph. Lamborghini’s figure, and academic on any road here.
Seats	4 or 5	A three-place rear bench, or two sculpted rear seats, by the car.
Doors	5	Four doors and a tailgate: the Lamborghini that does a school run.
On sale since	2018	Unveiled 4 December 2017 at Sant’Agata Bolognese, where it is built.

The car this review is about Lamborghini Urus The super-SUV, with every colour and the plug-in hybrid SE on one page. Five doors, a real boot, and the V8. Dates and rate →

What is a Urus?

A Urus is the Lamborghini for every day of the week. Lamborghini calls it the world’s first Super Sport Utility Vehicle, and the name is fair: an SUV’s body and doors around a supercar’s engine and pace.

The car on Lamborghini’s own history page is a twin-turbo V8 of 3,996 cc making 650 CV, which is 641 hp, with 0–100 km/h in 3.6 seconds and 305 km/h at the top. It was unveiled on 4 December 2017 at Sant’Agata Bolognese, where it is built, and it is the second SUV in Lamborghini’s history, after the LM002 of 1986 to 1993. Underneath it shares its MLB Evo platform with the big SUVs of the Volkswagen Group, Lamborghini’s owner, the Bentley Bentayga among them.

It was an immediate success. Lamborghini had built 20,000 by 2022, which made it the marque’s best-selling model in the shortest time; why the Urus is so popular is its own story. The name comes from the urus, the aurochs, the wild ancestor of modern cattle, which keeps Lamborghini’s bull theme with an animal that was never in a ring; the Lamborghini names, explained has the rest.

There have been several versions since the first: the Urus S, the lighter Performante, and now the SE, a plug-in hybrid with 800 CV that Lamborghini calls the first PHEV Super SUV. Rather than repeat the table, every Urus, side by side sets out what changed between them. The three days below are the Urus as Lamborghini launched it.

Day one: the school run and the canyon

The morning is the part nobody expects of a Lamborghini. Four doors, a proper rear seat, a boot behind a tailgate: the Urus does the school run in Brentwood or Hancock Park as calmly as any SUV on the street, the children climb in through a normal rear door, and the car rides on air suspension over the broken concrete that most of this city is paved with. In Strada, the everyday setting on the ANIMA selector, the V8 settles to a low murmur and the gearbox shifts out of the way.

Rear-wheel steering is the quiet hero of the drop-off lane: with the back wheels steering as well as the front, a big SUV takes a tight school gate or a narrow Westwood garage with less shuffling than its size suggests. It sits higher than the supercars, too, so steep driveway lips are not a worry.

Then the afternoon. Pull the ANIMA lever from Strada to Sport or Corsa and the car changes temperament: louder, sharper, keener. On Mulholland or the lower Angeles Crest it is astonishing for its size, quick to change direction and absurdly quick between corners, and very few cars can do the morning above and this in the same day without anyone changing seats. The best roads near Los Angeles has the routes.

Day two: the luggage and the airport

The second day is the one where a Urus earns its place over every other Lamborghini. Four adults and their bags fit without negotiation: the boot takes real suitcases, and nobody has to hold anything on their lap. That changes the airport arithmetic.

Most people pay for the car at the terminal because of the bags, but the boot solves half of that problem on its own, so on a Urus either airport tier works. Two people travelling light can take the car from the parking structure and the shuttle; a family landing late at night takes the terminal and does not think about it again. The airport delivery guide covers the rest.

The same qualities make it the Lamborghini for a long day out of town. On the freeway to Palm Springs or up the coast to Santa Barbara it settles in Strada, the ride stays soft and the cabin stays quiet enough to talk, and there is still a canyon’s worth of V8 when the road starts to bend. Nobody arrives folded.

Day three: the valet and the sound

By the third evening you know the effect. Pull up at a hotel on Sunset or a restaurant in West Hollywood and the valet brings the Urus to the front of the row rather than the end; people photograph it as they photograph the supercars, and it carries four of you to dinner. It is a Lamborghini that arrives with company.

And the sound. Lift the red cover, press the button, and the twin-turbo V8 wakes with a bark through the four tailpipes before settling to a rumble that carries across a forecourt. In Sport it is louder still; in Strada it is quiet enough for an early start on a residential street. That range, from courteous to theatrical at the turn of a selector, is the whole character of the car.

Which Urus, and which colour?

The Urus we rent is the car Lamborghini launched, the 641 hp V8, at $999/day, and alongside it is the plug-in hybrid Urus SE at $1,199/day, the newest face and the most power. The colour is a bigger decision than it looks, because each paint does something different in Los Angeles light: the Urus colours, explained goes through them. To drive the Urus in Los Angeles, start at the Lamborghini Urus page: every colour is linked from it, each with its own calendar.

What it costs, and how it reaches you

The Urus carries a refundable deposit from $1,500, held on the primary driver’s card rather than charged and back 5–7 business days after the car returns. The Protection plan is priced per day off the deposit band, and every Lamborghini here sits in the top one; your own qualifying policy works instead.

Collection from our lot on Robertson Boulevard is free and delivery to the partner hotels in Beverly Hills is complimentary. Airport delivery is $150 both ways standard, where the car waits in the airport parking structure and you take the shuttle out to it, or $300 both ways VIP, where it is at the terminal when you walk out — half that for one direction. Under twenty-five there is a young-driver fee per day, the higher of the two we charge. Mileage, fuel and the rest are in the terms.