New Lamborghini Urus Performante gets 666PS

Firstly, the looks. The Urus wasn’t exactly a shrinking violet before but the Performante has taken things up a notch and brought the Urus in line with the new Lamborghini corporate look. The snout is sharper and the bonnet is more aggressively defined. You’ll know it's a Performante for sure from the carbon and the vents. A new air curtain helps to reduce wheel arch drag, while the new Aventador SVJ-inspired rear spoiler increases downforce at the back by 38 per cent.

The Urus Performante is lower too, by 20mm, while the track is wider by 16mm compared to the standard car. The carbon is a recurring theme throughout the body of the Performante, with the arches, skirts, roof, spoiler and rump dripping with the stuff. Filling those arches are new forged 22-inch wheels, with 23s an option, albeit one we probably wouldn’t tick. Tip to tip the Performante is actually 25mm longer thanks to the reprofiled bumpers. Overall downforce is up by eight per cent in total.

Power is also up in the Urus Performante, with the 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 engine now producing 666PS (490kW). A power bump complements a drop in weight of 47kg, resulting in a 3.3-second 0-62mph sprint and a top speed of 190mph – not quite up there with the DBX707 just yet. Improving how that power is deployed also is a new torque vectoring rear differential.

On the inside, it’s more or less as you’d expect from a nipped and tucked performance variant. There are more exotic materials available with a more sporting attitude and there are new visuals for the digital stuff, but these are revisions rather than fundamental changes. Totally new for the Performante however is a new option in the drive modes: Rally. This optimises the car’s dynamics on rough and low-grip surfaces. We dread to imagine what a stoney dirt track would do to all that gloss carbon…

“The Urus Performante takes the supreme performance and distinctive looks of Lamborghini’s ground-breaking Super SUV to the next level,” said Lamborghini Chairman and CEO Stephan Winkelmann.

“It retains its luxurious versatility and delivers the most engaging driving experience: not only on road but in every environment, distinguished through an alluring design that denotes new benchmarks for driving dynamism in what is already a remarkable car. The Urus set a new standard at its launch, taking Lamborghini’s design DNA and technological talent and delivering the world’s first Super SUV for a new era: the Urus Performante sets the bar even higher for the SUV segment.”

If all these changes seem a little mild to you, you’ll be pleased to hear the Urus Performante represents a comparatively slight bump in price over the standard car. While the stock Urus can be had from £159,925, the Performante will start from £170,260. Of course, that will inflate dramatically once you give the Ad Personam folks some work to do.