The most expensive SUV off-road test

I’d never turn down the opportunity to drive a Lamborghini anywhere. But I didn’t expect to find myself in this particular situation.

You see, I’m in the driver’s seat of the Urus SE, the brand’s $500k ($457,834 plus on-roads, to be precise) super SUV and I’m on three wheels. The driver’s side rear tyre, which is usually providing a big contact patch with the road, is dangling in the air as we navigate the articulation obstacle course on Sydney Motorsport Park’s off-road course.

When Lamborghini invited me to last weekend’s Super Trofeo race in Sydney and offered a drive in the Urus SE, the new plug-in hybrid variant of Lamborghini’s take on a family car, I figured it might be a few hot laps around the track and then calling it a day.

Instead, they’ve let us loose on the four-wheel drive course that sits atop a hill looking down on the track. So, as we wait for the right time to take on the next challenge, I can look down and see the bright coloured new Revuelto lapping the track with its V12 engine screaming.

READ MORE: 2021 Lamborghini Urus review

And I don’t care that I missed out on driving the brand’s newest supercar around a track, sure it would have been fun, but there are occasions in life where you know you’re never likely to find yourself again; like meeting a celebrity, watching the sun rise on a remote vista or getting to take a Lamborghini off-road.

With the help of the experienced racing driver and instructor Steven Johnson, I was able to take the Urus into situations I never thought I would take a Lambo. Sure, we didn’t get too muddy, scrabble over rocks or drive into deep water, but the Urus was comfortable and confident in the wheel articulation, steep declines and other off-road obstacles.

Is the Urus SE the replacement for your Toyota LandCruiser for your next outback-crossing adventure? Obviously not, but it proved it’s more capable than just driving up the gravel driveway of your weekend estate.

But Lamborghini wasn’t done showing off yet, and our next stop was the skid pan, because the Urus SE may be a plug-in hybrid but it’s still a Lamborghini. The plug-in powertrain in question is a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 petrol engine with an electric motor to both boost performance and save fuel – depending on the situation. But don’t for a second think this means the Urus is soft, the V8 on its own makes 456kW of power and 800Nm of torque, but with the electric motor those figures surge to 588kW and 950Nm.

To demonstrate just how potent the engine is Lamborghini’s instructors let us loose on the wet skid pan to try drifting the big SUV. To be blunt, I didn’t do a great job, a few lurid slides but no linked drifts from one cone to the next, but it didn’t matter because the point was proven – the Urus SE is both powerful and ridiculously fun.

To finish off, Lamborghini did let us do a few quick laps around Sydney Motorsport Park, and while it was impressively rapid, the best part to me was to see the Urus still splattered with mud from the earlier off-road experience. It highlighted the breadth of capability the Urus SE offers, and this didn’t even include any test that would have showcased its efficiency, so it still has more to offer.

Although, to be clear, for half a million dollars, I would expect to have an incredibly capable and broad spectrum SUV. But the customers we experienced with seemed happy with their purchase… and happy it was Lamborghini’s car and not their own getting dirty and shredding tyres.