The SUV arms race has gotten so bad that car companies are now putting out versions of their already high-performance vehicles that are even faster. One example is the 2023 Lamborghini Urus lineup. The Urus from last year had 641 horsepower, but someone thought that wasn’t enough, so they turned it up to 657 horsepower and called it the Urus S. But even that wasn’t enough, so they also made a Urus Performante. It has the same power as the S, but it’s a lot tougher thanks to measures to make it lighter and a suspension and tire package designed for performance.
If both were on the market, we would have picked the Urus S to go up against the Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT and the Aston Martin DBX 707. Like them, the S has active anti-roll bars, a torque-vectoring rear differential, and a rear-wheel steering system. It also has adaptive air springs that can be changed in height. It might have been able to compete with the Porsche because the Lambo is built on the same platform as the Cayenne but has a wheelbase that is 4.3 inches longer. It has the same suspension, eight-speed automatic transmission, and 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8 as the Porsche, but the engine is tuned to make 657 horsepower instead of 631. The thing is, money might have been its downfall, since the Urus S starts at about the same price as the Aston, which lost to the Porsche because it was more expensive.