Make fast cars fun again | Thank Frankel it's Friday

But in my line of work, occasionally a ball comes at you on such an arcing trajectory you never see it until the very moment it's upon you. One such missile came my way this very day. I had travelled to North Wales for an assignment with a few cars, one of which was a Lamborghini. A Huracan Sterrato to give it its full name. It is to a normal Huracan what a 911 Dakar is to the world’s most famous sportscar – so it’s got some additional ground clearance, on/off-road tyres and an appearance beefed by additional driving lights, a roof rack, bolt-on wheel arch extensions and so on, every single one of which I’d be fine without.

This will sound terrible, but I wasn’t in the least bothered about driving it. I’d just got off a ten-hour flight, I was absolutely exhausted, the weather was filthy and most Huracans I’ve driven before have left me somewhat underwhelmed, magnificent powertrains aside. They’re very fast of course and will corner even harder than they accelerate or even brake, but the one thing that matters most in all cars in general and these in particular – that sense of connection that makes you feel part of the process, the feel that gives you the confidence to press on – has often been in somewhat short supply.

So I climbed aboard, noted the odd modification – there’s a compass, an inclinometer and the ‘Corsa’ track mode has been replaced by something called ‘Rally’ – but otherwise and lack of carpets aside, it felt pretty much business as usual. This is an old car now, coming up on its tenth year in production and the Sterrato is undoubtedly part of its exit strategy to keep interest from flagging as its time approaches. But within a mile – actually make that a few hundred yards – I knew instantly that something was different about this car. Very, very different.

Despite the weather, despite the fact the car was inconveniently wide for the road we were on, the confidence came at once. More in my first minute than I’ve experienced in any other Huracan, and any Lamborghini since at least the Murcielago. I could place it, inch-perfect every time; it was talking to me and I was responding in kind. It didn’t hop, skip, jink and jump from place to place on these bumpy Snowdonia roads, it flowed like liquid. I was enjoying a Lamborghini like I’ve not enjoyed a Lamborghini in years.

So what kind of witchcraft has been at work here? So far as I can figure, precisely none. Yes, during the course of the car’s development, they fiddled with the diff settings, the torque split and ESP intervention points but that’s really detail. What’s made this car so much better to drive are all the things that modern wisdom suggests should make it worse. Narrower tyres, softer springs and more suspension travel.

But why are we surprised? If you’re on Goodwood Road & Racing you likely love old cars which came on skinny rubber and gentler suspension. But the modern vogue for grip, more grip and more grip still, or simply the fashionista desire to drive a car whose tyres are almost as fat as those on an F1 machine have taken the supercar too far. It is a point proven beyond all doubt by this run-out special Lamborghini.

Of course, we have been here before, more recently than some would think. The Alpine A110 earned itself an ocean of purple prose for espousing precisely this principle. I guess what I failed to anticipate was how well it would translate from a car with fewer than 250PS to one with more than 600PS.

Without having to change anything substantive – like its structure – but merely those bits that append to it, Lamborghini has transformed this car for the better. The only car out there remotely like it is the aforementioned Porsche 911 Dakar. Actually, I think the Sterrato is even better to drive, albeit less easy on then eye, far more impractical and, at over £230,000, wildly more expensive.

But for my purposes, that doesn’t really matter. It’s the idea behind it. So, car makers, if you really want to make your sporting offer genuinely more pleasurable for your customers, just remember that less is still more. Less rubber and less spring rate equals more fun. As equations go it’s not hard to remember, and as a philosophy for fast car design it is transformative.