Besides the 2019 Lamborghini Urus’s power, speed and incredible brakes, its other standout feature concerns a factory option. 23-inch wheels, to be specific. They sound ridiculous, and they are.
The wheels themselves weigh 37.48 pounds in the front and 40.79 pounds in the rear for a combined 157 pounds. If you’re looking for context, a 2018 Mustang GT PP2‘s 19-inch wheels weigh about 31 pounds up front, 30 pounds in the rear, as noted on this forum thread.
How much do they cost? Well, it’s $5,051 for the Taigete Shiny Black and $5,682 for the Taigete Diamond Finished.
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The brakes are the biggest on a production car. Up front they are 17.3 inches, or 440 mm. The 14.6-inch rear brakes look puny when you go with the 23-inch wheels. At least they’re carbon ceramics—the Urus weighs close to 5,000 pounds.
These wheels leave dinosaur footprints, too: Up front, the Urus has 285-section tires. In the back, it wears 325-section tires. Lamborghini told us that Pirelli designed a set of “custom” tires for the Urus, but come on. They’re only custom because nobody else makes a 23-inch, 325-section tire. That’s called a monopoly.
Now, on almost any other car, 23-inch wheels would be absurd. But the Urus can pull them off well because its design language uses wide angles that evoke a general sense of massiveness. On it, the big wheels don’t look that out of place. You can almost forget the scale until you put a person next to them for reference.
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If I lined those wheels up next to my car, I’m pretty sure that they would be taller than the hood. At least the front brake discs are proportionately huge as well, so there isn’t that annoying gap between the rotor and the wheel.
I sat around thinking about these big wheels for a while and finally decided that they are really no different than a man or a woman strapping on a pair of platform stilettos of their own. Different people wear high-heeled shoes for different reasons, so I won’t presume to try and guess them all. But I’d wager that the top three reasons are that they make you taller, look killer in profile and help you tower over your enemies.
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And just the same with high heels, big wheels are sometimes uncomfortable and impractical to use. I myself thought that the Maserati Levante Trofeo’s 22-inch wheels jostled the ride quality too much. And I want to see someone try and parallel park a Urus without coming close to curbing those things. But for sitting still and looking pretty? Absolutely ace.
To be frank, the Urus is something more than just another car on stilts. In it, I sense a kindred spirit. For every short girl (or guy) who has ever wanted platform heels, the market has delivered. The same goes for this Lamborghini. I’m not completely sure who the short girls or guys are in this situation, but I do know that if the shoes exist, someone will buy them.
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I certainly own tall shoes, especially for times like the Gizmodo Media Group holiday party, when I need to gaze down my nose at the rest of the Jalopnik team and evaluate how much sake they’ve all drunk.
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