Lamborghini

Which Lamborghini to Pick

A Lamborghini rental in Southern California comes down to 3 families, and the choice is simpler than the list of names makes it look. Rent a Lamborghini for the sound and you want a Huracan. Rent one for the arrival and you want the Aventador. Rent one because 4 people and their bags are coming, and you want a Urus. It is the exotic car rental most people picture first.

The Huracan is the mid-engine V10, and it is the car most people mean when they say the word. The base coupe is the first-supercar pick, the one you take up Angeles Crest with the windows down in Sport so you can hear it bark on every lift. The Evo adds a center screen, rear-wheel steering that makes valet stands easier, and Apple CarPlay. The Spyder and Evo Spyder drop a fabric roof in 17 seconds at up to 31 mph, which is the configuration people book for proposals and coast drives, because the passenger can see and be seen. The Huracan Performante is the enthusiast's version, with a wing, race seats and steering that people who know cars ask for by name. It is not a cruiser.

The Urus is the SUV. Comfortable in traffic, quiet in Strada, 5 seats, a real trunk, and nobody at the valet stand treats it as an event, which is exactly why it works for a client dinner. The Urus S and the Urus Performante are the sharper versions. The Widebody and the Mansory are for whoever asked for the wildest looking Urus on the road.

The Aventador, in SV and SVJ form, coupe or roadster, is the V12 with scissor doors. It stops traffic, and it asks something of the driver in return. Pick it when you have already driven something fast and want the one people cross the street to photograph.

What a Lamborghini Says

Ferrari reads as money. Lamborghini reads as fun. That is the split strangers make without knowing they are making it, and it is why a Lamborghini crosses a social line that a German car at the same price does not. People do not look at the driver of a Lamborghini. They look at the car, and then they look at the driver to see who got to do this. Kids stop. Phones come out at every red light. Someone at the gas station will ask you to rev it, and someone else will already be filming when you do.

Color is read as intent. Orange, green and yellow say you are enjoying it. Black and grey say you are trying to be discreet, which does not work, and which is fine for a client dinner.

Where the Theater Comes From

The mechanism is deliberate. Every Lamborghini starts with a red flip cover over the start button, a fighter-jet flap the factory has publicly promised to keep even though it makes starting the car slower. Hexagons run through the vents, the speaker grilles and the screen graphics.

The Huracan carries a naturally aspirated V10 behind your head, and the sound arrives through the bulkhead rather than the speakers, a growl in Strada, backfires on every lift in Sport, the exhaust fully open in Corsa. The Urus takes a twin-turbo V8 and a drum-shaped selector Lamborghini calls the tamburo, with a red flap in the middle and a giant aircraft-throttle lever beside it whose only job is reverse. The Aventador's V12 is 6.5 liters and revs to 8,500, and scissor doors are a privilege only the V12 cars get. You pull the door down on top of you, look out through a windscreen the shape of a letterbox, flick the cover, and the car fires behind your shoulders. That ritual is the product.

Lamborghini Rentals Across Southern California

Southern California is the natural habitat. A Huracan Spyder on Pacific Coast Highway between Newport Beach and Malibu with the roof down is the drive people picture when they picture renting one, and Angeles Crest, Ortega Highway and Mulholland are where the V10 gets to work. The Urus gets booked for the other half of life here, the Palm Springs weekend, the airport run with 4 people and their bags. The V12 Aventador, coupe or roadster, gets booked for the music video and the milestone birthday where the photographs are the point.

We deliver Lamborghinis across Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, the Inland Empire and Palm Springs, to hotels, residences and the curb at LAX, SNA, BUR, LGB, ONT, SAN and PSP. Lamborghini rentals run from $995 to $3,995 a day depending on the car, with the Huracan and the Urus at the lower end and the V12 cars at the top. Multi-day and weekly rates drop the daily price.

Drive a Lamborghini

You drop into a Huracan rather than sit in it. The seat is low, the window is a slot, and the first thing you learn is that the turn signals are a thumb toggle on the wheel because there are no stalks. Reverse is a lever you lift toward you. In Strada it is civil enough for a hotel forecourt. Flick the toggle to Sport and every lift of the throttle sets off a run of backfires that people on the sidewalk react to before you do. The carbon brakes squeal for the first few stops on a cold morning. That is normal.

The Aventador, by comparison, is heavier work and more reward. The gearbox is a single-clutch that lurches at low speed and shoves your head on every full-throttle upshift. That is not a fault. It is the car. At 8,500 rpm the noise inside is all consuming, and from the sidewalk it is spectacular. Public roads only. Track use is not permitted.