It’s no secret that Lamborghini are looking for ways to increase their worldwide sales with a third model. They’ve had a go at producing a Lamborghini saloon car in the past and this year in Beijing we saw what a Lamborghini SUV would look like. Lamborghini expects that management will give the Urus SUV the green light before the end of the year. They expect the Urus to sell 3,000 units a year, doubling the total global sales of the brand.
Lamborghini sold 1,600 vehicles last year. Strong demand in China, the United States, Europe, Russia and the Middle East is expected to drive sales of the Urus. Competition in this sector will be fierce though. Maserati hopes to bring an SUV to market soon and Bentley executives have also indicated that the EXP 9 F will make it into production. On top of this, expect the Range Rover and Porsche Cayenne to continue their dominance.
The Lamborghini Urus could use Audi’s PL73 platform a chassis that currently underpins the Audi Q7, Porsche Cayenne and VW Touareg. Expect it to be around 400 pounds lighter than similar models on the same platform and with a new twin-turbo V8 engine. Lamborghini predicts a sales split of 45 percent in North America and South America, 30 percent in China and the Middle East and 25 percent in Europe and Russia.
Maurizio Reggiani, Lamborghini’s Research and Design director, told Automotive News Europe:
We were given a very challenging target: Make the production Urus the best-performing and lightest vehicle in its category. This is forcing us to think outside the box. We envisage a start of production no sooner than early 2017.
