Hotter Lamborghini Urus Wants To Crash Ferrari Purosangue’s Party

The arrival of the Urus SUV transformed Lamborghini’s fortunes, and it’s been such a massive hit that the automaker hasn’t felt the need to fiddle with the package in the four years since its launch. But with Ferrari gearing up to reveal its own Purosangue crossover later this year, Lamborghini knows it’s time to freshen up the Urus.

And that refresh will include a hotter Urus variant designed to sit above the regular SUV, which will itself be updated and could be given the Evo tag applied to facelifted Huracans. That’s according to our spy photographers, who recently snapped the Urus as testing moved from snowy Scandinavia to Germany’s dry roads.

The prototype has swapped its 15-spoke wheels for a more conventional set of five-spoke rims with a hexagon motif, but still appears to be wearing winter tires, which won’t be showing off the no-doubt stiffer suspension’s improved cornering abilities in its best light.

Also visible thanks to the almost complete lack of disguise are the new front and rear bumper designs we first saw back in January when Lamborghini peeled off the heavy camo, and which appear to be inspired by the styling details of the new track-ready Huracan Tecnica.

Related: Lamborghini Boss Says First EV Might Be Another Crossover, Followed By An Electric Urus

The horizontal grille vanes in the front bumper are now simpler and lose their tuning fork shape, while the rear bumper appears to feature vents behind each wheel arch that could be used to draw unwanted air pressure out of the wheelarch. Or they could be completely fake. The other significant visual upgrade is on the hood, which gains a pair of long vents running down the ribs that form the hood’s V-section.

Ferrari has confirmed that the Purosangue will get a V12 engine, but Lamborghini won’t be dropping its V10 or V12 motors into the facelifted Urus, or any high performance version of it. Instead, it will further massage the existing 4.0-liter V8 to boost power from its current 641 hp (650 PS) state of tune. And given Aston Martin’s newly released range-topping DBX707 makes 697 hp (707 PS), it’s a fair bet Lamborghini will be looking to go higher still.

Ferrari is expected to reveal the Purosangue later this year, and we’d expect Lamborghini to do its best to deflect attention from its rival’s big news by lifting the lid on the Urus’s updates around the same time. And looking further ahead, the refreshed Urus SUVs will be joined by a long-awaited PHEV variant that could be even more powerful – sources suggest 808 hp (819 PS) as a likely figure – in line with Lamborghini’s promise to electrify its entire range by 2024.

Picture credit: S. Baldauf/SB-Medien