Welcome to the family: living with a 641bhp Lamborghini Urus

Remarkably, though, as the weeks passed by, I began to feel a little less conspicuous when venturing out to collect the weekly shop or driving to a work commitment. And so, as much as it felt like sacrilege to make mundane, daily use of a Lamborghini, the Urus simply became transport for what was allowable. I took it to a couple of Covid-secure UK press launches and I did a few click-and-collect weekly shop runs in it. Consumer advice alert: an Urus fits into the Aldi parking bay set aside for this purpose much better than my parking would make it seem; the boot is massive and its organising system is great for keeping your fresh and frozen separate and preventing your eggs getting crushed by your bottles and cans. You’re welcome.

We were probably three weeks into the test before I felt confident enough that I could take the long route to the supermarket one day, via some local roads I love, without risking a £200 police fine. And so I did just enough B-road miles in the Urus to blow off the dust (or rather the snow) and to experiment with that whopping great Tamburo driving mode selector on the transmission tunnel.

Now, you can only click this thing in one direction, and there are six preset driving modes to switch through (translated from the Italian, they’re Road, Sport, Track, Snow, Rock and Sand, plus an extra Ego mode in which you can set the car’s systems up à la carte, supposedly). Anyway, if you miss the one you were aiming for because you’re, I dunno, looking at the road or something, it’s a bit annoying to have to click through them all again. Living with a car makes you all too aware of little usability foibles like this.

Anyway, Strada and Sport were the modes that I used most often; the former because it’s the car’s default (it doesn’t remember which setting you left it in, annoyingly) and the latter because it delivers better high-speed body control, slightly keener handling feel and a bit more V8 rumble from the exhaust. If anything, I found the Urus a little overly laid-back and subdued in Strada mode. A car like this should never feel normal, but it’s within the remit of a luxury SUV to do everyday transport easily, isn’t it? A tough one to square, that.

Still, dial up Sport mode and the outright pace of the Urus is breathtaking. It’s also so much more poised and engaging to drive than you will believe something this size could possibly be. It’s not an analogue car, granted; when you drive it fast, it isn’t obvious whether all the grip and agility it has is coming courtesy of the four-wheel steering, the torque vectoring or the active anti-roll bars. But, up to a commitment level you won’t feel it remotely appropriate to exceed on the public road, this SUV definitely handles. You don’t get bored with it. I’d say I enjoyed driving it on day 63 every bit as much as I did on day six. You do need to remind yourself that it’s a Lamborghini, though, and just to go and enjoy it, because the Urus doesn’t broadcast its sporting character 24/7 like a supercar might.

The better news is that the family really loved the Urus. It’s funny how people who don’t think as hard about cars as we do can be liberated from some of our collective neuroses about them. To the kids, this was just two and a bit tonnes of fun, pure and simple. They adored being in it, having so many buttons to press and being able to raise and lower each other’s electric windows in particular. It was better than a funfair ride.

In fact, it was very likely down to my children that, when the Urus was eventually collected at the end of our loan, they needed a crane to load it back onto the low-loader. Endless button-pressing in the back row had, I suspect, left it with a battery so drained that the car wouldn’t even unlock, never mind start, so there was no chance of even getting the bonnet open, never mind administering CPR to the electrical system. The colleague from whom the car was actually collected says his neighbours have been standing at their windows ever since, waiting to watch his house be repossessed.

At the end of it all, though, I had learned plenty, much as I feared that I wouldn’t: that a Lamborghini can be practical and fun, but not always at the same time, and that a bright yellow, 2200kg super-SUV that’s the price of a house can be a dependable everyday driver without permanently damaging your character or causing you to be shunned or avoided, even if you have one at the most prescriptive of times. I imagine Urus ownership is even more rewarding if you have somewhere to actually go in it – and, trust me, people won’t hate you when you get there.

The options to have

Panoramic sunroof, £2368: Head room isn’t at such a premium here that you need to avoid a panoramic roof. Your passengers will love how it lets the outside world in.

Heated rear seats, £526: They don’t cost the earth, they make you feel that much more special if you’re in the back and they make a difference to your comfort level when you’re coming in from the cold.