Lamborghini Urus Conquers Highest Road In The World

When most people think about Lamborghini, they think 'supercar', but this famed italian manufacturer has a history of building hardy vehicles meant to conquer the great outdoors. The company famously started out building tractors for the farming industry before it got into the world of exotic sports cars, and in the 1980s brought to the world the Lamborghini LM002, or "Rambo Lambo". This Hummer-looking off-road machine proved that the company had a lust for adventure, and the Lamborghini Urus continues that legacy.

Lamborghini has taken the Urus on a number of publicized road trips, including a recent 500-mile desert odyssey through the Helan mountain range in China, but its latest trip has truly taken things to the extreme: the Urus just conquered the highest drivable road.

In the Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir, in India, you'll find the Umling La Pass, which is officially the highest drivable road in the world at 19,300 ft above sea level. Not only does this high altitude drain massive amounts of power from the ordinary internal combustion engine, but drivers also have to contend with a minimum temperature of between -20 degrees and -10 degrees and average wind speeds of between 25 and 50 mph. The Lamborghini team managed to negotiate this treacherous pass not once, but twice on October 8 and 9, 2021.

"I would like to congratulate the Border Roads Organisation and its team on their remarkable achievement. When we reached Umling La Pass, even standing for 30 minutes was extremely difficult, and how the team completed the road in such extreme weather conditions is unimaginable. During the 87.5 km-long drive from Hanle to Umling La, Urus performed brilliantly under the Terra and Sport driving modes on a road that sits higher than the base camp of Mount Everest," remarked Mr. Sharad Agarwal, Head of Lamborghini India.

The fact that the Lamborghini Urus features a turbocharged engine played a big part in this impressive feat, as turbochargers compensate for the lack of air density by spooling faster, which in turn maintains a constant level of air pressure. The Urus features a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 engine producing 641 horsepower and 627 lb-ft of torque, which it sends to all four wheels via an eight-speed automatic transmission. The 0-62 mph sprint takes only 3.6 seconds.