For decades the world of fun-to-drive sports cars and supercars has been held hostage by the almighty 0-60 time. This has resulted in several generations of increasingly higher-powered and computer-controlled mega machines that treat the driving experience like a video game with a singular goal of delivering a faster quarter mile or Nürburgring lap time. For those of us looking to experience something bordering on emotion behind the wheel, our choices have been winnowed away. The manual transmission has all but died, and it’s probably too late to save it. Lamborghini has, perhaps, seen the light.
In a recent interview with Top Gear, the raging bull’s chief technical officer Rouven Mohr had some interesting things to say in that regard.
“We are a brand that offers an experience. We don’t offer mobility from A to B. Nobody really needs a Lamborghini. We need to generate ‘want’ with a thrill in the car. Some cars on the market are so over-engineered you don’t feel a connection. We pursue the best excitement possible.”
“Character is defined by other things,” he continued. “I think we have some cool ideas. In the next year or two we will showcase our thoughts. It’s far away from what your 0-62mph acceleration time is. That is not something that generates fun.”
That is not something that generates fun. Hot damn, this is exciting. We need a new way to define what makes a car fun to drive because 0-60 has always been a shitty metric. Now that regular family sedans can run 0-60 in under 2 seconds, what’s the point?
As Lamborghini moves further into its electric and hybrid era, it is looking to find new ways to deliver fizz from its vehicles that don’t involve going quicker in a straight line. Hyundai has already proven that it’s possible to generate the necessary excitement in an electric vehicle with the Ioniq 5 N, but Lamborghini wants to try a bunch of new things that haven’t been done before to achieve fizziness.
I, for one, hope that Mr. Mohr is successful in his endeavors and that this research trickles down to more accessible sports cars and daily drivers. Is it too much to hope that the world of car enthusiasm is in its post-0-to-60 era?