Lamborghini Huracán LP 610-4

It was probably the best headache I've ever had in my life. A spicy combination of Lamborghini's superlative new 2015 Huracán LP 610-4, fast-as-you-can-drive laps of the tricky Ascari race circuit, 80 kilometers of the Ronda Road and a healthy dose of southern Spanish sun had left me with a bit of a pounder. That cocktail of speed and noise had also granted me one of the best days of driving in my life.

As an encore to Gallardo, the single most successful Lamborghini model in history, and following on the heels of the most profitable era the company has ever known, the stakes for this Huracán could hardly be higher. What's more, considering that stablemate Avendator hasn't exactly come in for universal praise (despite its unquestionable commercial success), I flew to Spain with a small pit of doubt in my generally buoyant heart. Could Huracán possibly let me down?

It could, maybe. But it didn't. This is a car that most assuredly lives up to the hype, and is fully worthy of wearing the crown won for it by the outgoing Gallardo. Sorry for the spoiler.

A couple of aspirin, rehydration and a few minibar cervezas later, my headache was more or less forgotten. But the drive of this heartthrob Huracán is something that I'd keep with me for a lot longer.

In nearly every instantiation since the Countach, Lamborghini design has tickled sensational far more often than sensuous. That is to say the brand isn't afraid of taking chances with the sheetmetal of its super sports cars. Still, there's been a huge gulf between relatively simple shapes like that of the Gallardo and the crazy origami of unsubtle Aventador, or the truly outrageous Veneno. This blade-sharp family aesthetic has been attractively blunted with Huracán, however, with hard creases and razor edges discarded in favor of the softest wedge Sant'Agata has produced since the idiom's inception.

Lamborghini President and CEO Stephan Winkelmann (himself somewhat of a style icon for the tight trousers set), told us his brief for the design was that it be "clear[ly] a classic Lamborghini." And head of design Filippo Perini delivered on this in my view, shaping Huracán to be "a little bit more female than male" in his words, while still being, "very simple, but very, very aggressive."

Considered in the context of all Lamborghini design history, I think the Huracán's visage is almost subtle, though it'll still drop jaws in whichever public places it's driven. I'm especially fond of the taut rear of the car, where Perini and team worked to clean up the aero drastically versus the Gallardo, achieving 50-percent more downforce and lowering drag without resorting to the use of active aerodynamic aids. But walk around the Huracán and you'll be pressed to find a single design element that doesn't enhance the message that this is a wide, low and powerful object that has been shaped by the fast-moving wind.

At six-foot five, there's nothing remotely natural about my getting in and out of that very low slung door. But when I did fold up and bend myself inside, the confines I found were unquestionably more aggressive of design than the exterior. I had heard plenty of mumbled nitpicking about the Huracán interior from my journalist colleagues (most focused on the "tacked on" appearance of the hexagonal air vents), but to me it seems like a video-game-car cockpit made real. The center stack pulls off the 'fighter jet' motif better than most sports cars with similar aspirations – a row of metal toggle switches impressively crowning a few choice buttons from the desirable Audi parts bin.

Alcantara and leather has been attractively stretched over carbon-fiber bucket seats (lighter, firmer optional chairs that are manually adjustable and very low set), and similar buttery hides have been contrast-stitched into place over nearly every other surface in the intimate cabin. Even on a hot track, with rubber being fragrantly atomized just yards away, my first dip into the Huracán driver's seat smelled a lot like walking into a Salvatore Ferragamo flagship store.

Still, the most attractive piece in the whole cabin has got to be the hexagonal, red, flip-up panel that guards the ignition's start/stop button. The item is straight from Hollywood central casting for an advanced military weapon; appropriate, as kicking to life the Huracán's 5.2-liter V10 is the automotive equivalent of prepping a missile launch.

Slotted into my perfect driving position (with only millimeters to spare in every dimension), my first go with the V10 "power unit" was on a full-chat lead-follow run around the meandering Ascari racetrack. Even having driven many machines with similar power, and countless laps of circuits all over the world, keeping pace by the grace of this quick-revving engine was every bit as intimidating as it was enthralling, at least for the first session.

Lamborghini has improved the throttle tip-in speed vis-à-vis Gallardo, with the result being instant response from even the most tender of right-foot flexes. Coming out of pit lane and into the first complex of turns, I was immediately aware of how quickly the rpms would spin-up the digital tachometer. It took but an eye blink before I found myself pulling the right paddle for an upshift; quick enough that I'll admit to hitting the rev limiter (just over the 8,250 rpm power peak) on a few occasions.

As those revs piled on, the bucolic Spanish surroundings went blurry in my periphery, with the V10 monster behind my head delivering gobs of energy to four boiling contact patches. Coming through a left-hander and onto Ascari's back straight, with my size-13 Puma mashing the throttle to the carpet, acceleration from about 60 miles per hour, up to 120 or so, was maniacal. Lamborghini quotes a time of 9.9 seconds to reach 200 kilometers per hour (124 mph) from a standstill, but the sensation made in one's chest when calling up full power makes those numbers seem irrelevant.