Why Jeremy Clarkson Chose the Huracán Performante Over Everything Else in 2018

One car made him feel something no other supercar could that year.

Jeremy Clarkson presented his 2018 Car of the Year award to Maurizio Reggiani, Lamborghini's Board Director for Research and Development, at the inaugural motoring awards hosted by The Sunday Times and The Sun.

The quality Clarkson couldn't quite name

Clarkson did not cite a lap time, a power figure, or a styling detail — he described a tingling at the back of his head that told him the Performante was something special.

Active aerodynamics in action

Lamborghini's patented Aerodinamica Lamborghini Attiva system dynamically adjusts airflow through vents and ducts beneath the rear wing, under the floor, and at the front to optimize grip based on speed, cornering direction, and driver inputs.

Forged carbon fiber and the pursuit of lightness

Lamborghini's engineers reduced the Performante's mass by 90 lbs through extensive use of forged carbon fiber, a material the company helped pioneer for automotive applications, bringing curb weight down to 3,493 lbs.

Emotional validation as competitive advantage

For a brand that competes against Ferrari's racing heritage and McLaren's clinical engineering precision, Clarkson's subjective, emotional endorsement carried strategic weight that a Nürburgring lap record cannot replicate.

The turbocharged rivals Clarkson passed over

In 2018, Ferrari's 488 family relied on a twin-turbo V8 and McLaren's lineup was entirely turbocharged, but Clarkson's award quietly reframed Lamborghini's insistence on natural aspiration as conviction rather than stubbornness.

Lamborghini's tradition of visceral spectacle

Clarkson, who regularly writes motoring features for The Sunday Times and hosts Amazon's The Grand Tour, built a career on being difficult to impress — so isolating one car from an entire year of driving says more than any instrumented test could.

The coherence behind the tingling

Clarkson's tingling was likely the sum of every input arriving simultaneously: the V10's scream, the chassis loading up through the seat, and the steering weighting precisely as the front axle bites.

Aero vectoring from the driver's seat

The rear wing's two independent channels can operate asymmetrically, applying more downforce to the inside rear wheel during cornering to tighten the car's line — what Lamborghini calls aero vectoring.

Transparent mechanical dialogue at speed

The Performante's unfiltered feel requires the kind of transparent mechanical dialogue that only comes when weight is low, response is immediate, and nothing stands between the driver's intention and the car's reaction.

The Huracán lineage the Performante launched

The Performante spawned a lineage of increasingly focused variants: the rear-wheel-drive Performante Spyder, the track-oriented STO, the off-road-curious Sterrato, and the 10-unit farewell STJ that Car and Driver described as an epic swan song.