A Lamborghini Huracan drifts on the ice covered Lake Sacacomie in Quebec, in February, as part of Lamborghini Esperienza Neve, the Snow Experience.Courtesy of manufacturer
Some of Lamborghini’s best customers from across North America are sipping maple-whisky cocktails out of ice shot glasses and slurping freshly shucked oysters on frozen Lake Sacacomie, located in the Laurentians, about an hour northwest of Trois-Rivières, Que.
Some customers have brought along their spouses and children. One guy is a car fanatic who tells me he has a collection of 70 vehicles split between multiple homes. Another guest isn’t really into cars but apparently just likes having new Lamborghinis. One customer mentions that his daughter rides horses competitively against Bruce Springsteen’s daughter and Bill Gates’ daughter, and wins. There’s a nice couple from Vancouver (their garage is egalitarian, including both Ferraris and Lamborghinis). Most other guests are American.
Lamborghini set up a large tent complete with a bar and lounge for guests.JAMEY PRICE/Courtesy of manufacturer
The sun has set on Lake Sacacomie and out on the ice there’s a large tent – complete with a bar and lounge – to keep everyone ensconced in the sort of comfort that usually accompanies wealth.
A team consisting mostly of current and former professional racing drivers is standing by to take guests on “hot laps” in Lamborghinis around a racetrack that’s been painstakingly plowed across the frozen lake. (Lamborghini’s people have been here for months beforehand, preparing the venue and pumping water onto the ice to ensure it’s more than thick enough to support a fleet of 2.2-tonne Urus SUVs being driven like, well, Lamborghinis.) In the darkness, a driver flings a $270,000 Urus sideways into a four-wheel powerslide before flicking it 180 degrees into another long, sweeping drift. Passengers laugh and swear. The driver links every drift, one after another, into a kind of violent ballet for several laps before returning passengers to the tent.
Welcome to the Lamborghini Esperienza Neve, the Snow Experience. On day two of three, guests drove the Urus SUV – as well as Lamborghini’s 600-horsepower Huracan supercar – across the frozen lake at high speed with expert tutelage from Lamborghini’s team of professional drivers. The company reserved the entire Sacacomie Spa Hotel and brought in a high-end catering team to ensure its 50 or so customers over five waves and their guests would have the place to themselves.
Before the event was over, Lamborghini was well on the way to winning new business. (During the two nights I was there, at least two, maybe three, customers decided to buy new Lamborghinis.)
The idea, though, isn’t just to sell cars.
“For over a decade, the adventurous Lamborghini Esperienza programs have been part of our highly curated customer-delighting experiences designed to entertain and thrill our valued clients, not to generate a profit,” Andrea Baldi, chief executive officer for Automobili Lamborghini Americas, said in an e-mail.
Inviting customers to a frozen lake and letting them loose in your latest supercar is also a long-term, brand-building play.
Experiences like this allow car companies to add non-material value to their products, said Claire Tsai, a professor of marketing at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.
“These [automotive] brands can add value to material purchases – making cars faster or more luxurious by using better materials – but there is a limit. Experiential marketing is more flexible; there’s more room to add value,” Tsai said.
Research shows people tend to value experiences more, and get more happiness out of them than they do material purchases, she added.
The ice covered track on Lake Sacacomie.Courtesy of manufacturer
Indeed, drifting pointlessly around the frozen lake in a Huracan Sterrato with its V10 engine roaring behind me, I did note some happiness. It was the same childlike delight you might’ve felt when getting away with doing something you probably shouldn’t be doing.
The programs appeal not just to the wealthy, extroverted car enthusiasts who make up Lamborghini’s core clientele, but also to people who are looking for adventure, community or just something exclusive to post on Instagram.
Lamborghini organizes these extravaganzas, while dealers offer invitations to selected customers and prospects. That’s the only way to get to this event, unless you are a writer or YouTuber invited ostensibly to enjoy yourself but really to create content. (I am not a Lamborghini customer, in case there were any doubt.)
The cost per driver is about $20,000 for two nights of all-inclusive driving and dining, plus dog-sledding, snowmobiling and luxury accommodation. For Canadian invitees, their dealer covers at least half the cost, but elsewhere, dealers may pay for all or none of it.
“There’s no salesman here. They’re not pushing anything. But, I mean, I’ve already been looking at different colour combos for another Urus, so I guess it works,” said Brian Lettieri, a guest who runs an internet marketing firm based in San Diego.
Asked whether he would rather have a $20,000 discount on his next Lamborghini or an invitation from his dealer to this event, he didn’t hesitate. “I would rather have the perk than a discount. … Just being around racing instructors and seeing how they drive and learning from them is invaluable,” Lettieri said.
I can’t tell you why drifting a car on ice is so much fun exactly. Some of the enjoyment, however, is derived from the fact that it’s possible to unleash the full potential of a modern sports car on the ice, which is something you can’t even get close to on public roads. It certainly helps that there’s nothing to crash into on the frozen lake.
Lamborghini ran Esperienza Neve events in Livigno, Italy this past January, and in New Zealand last August. After a pause during the pandemic, Andrea Baldi said the company is once again building up its roster of driving programs on racetracks, frozen lakes, public roads and off-road trails around the world.
Other brands, including BMW and Ferrari, have been running similar types of exclusive events for years. Mercedes-AMG ran an ice-driving event in Gimli, Man. Range Rover House pop-ups bring invited guests to exotic locales in the Italian Alps and French Riviera. And, later this year, Porsche will open a permanent experience centre with its own racetrack near Toronto.
The only minor infringement on my happiness came while I was drifting the Huracan in what felt like slow motion. Looking out the windshield at the pristine, snow-dusted evergreens and rolling Laurentian foothills triggered a twinge of climate guilt as the V10 hit the rev limiter. The fact that this lake doesn’t stay frozen as long as it used to, and the fact Lamborghini nearly had to cancel one of its other winter events in a previous year because of unseasonable warmth is a reminder of the true cost of this fossil-fuelled fun.
On the bright side, this event would be no less fun if the cars were EVs, and Lamborghini would be happy to sell you one of those starting in 2028.
A Lamborghini Urus drifts on the ice.Courtesy of manufacturer
The writer was a guest of the auto maker. Content was not subject to approval.
Matt Bubbers