Yahoo Autos The Lamborghini Revuelto Is Good Enough to Save the V-12
Stray cats. Like most fun places in the Mediterranean, the Nardò Technical Center in Southern Italy is full of them. Cute and happy on a warm summer day, chilling by the hidden circuit that’s off-limits to most humans. When unleashing the combined force of 1001 hp on the main straight, you can’t help but wonder how intelligent they may be. Lamborghini invited three magazines including Road & Track, and had an equal number of trackable pre-production Revueltos for the lucky ones four months before the official press drive. No spares. Hitting roadkill at 200 wasn’t an option.
The Revuelto was Lamborghini’s most complex and expensive development to date, a sign of its current power within the Volkswagen group. Like everywhere, people in the Emilia-Romagna region talk, and the ratio of engineers is high in Northern Italy anyway. Chances are, if you are good at what you do and happen to work for Lamborghini these days, you also spent some time at Ferrari or Maserati before.
We all need these talks, because if Lamborghini decides to keep the V-12 alive for another extended decade, so will Ferrari, using every trick to satisfy the current political and social climate. Maranello is aggressive with its technology, so in return, the Revuelto has a lot to offer beyond the plug-in hybrid label and inconvenient charging port that nobody will ever use. There’s no need, because leaving it to the front axle motors or the V-12, the 3.8-kWh battery gets full after just six minutes of driving. There’s an e-mode for cities, reverse is by the front axle or both, and all-wheel drive is also available in pure electric mode.
The naturally aspirated dry-sump twelve-cylinder now produces 814 hp close to its 9500 rpm redline. It’s also 37 pounds lighter than the Aventador’s V-12. Aided by the trio of electric motors, there’s no physical connection between the two axles, yet all-wheel drive remains active even at top speed, which is in excess of 217 mph.
Nardò has been very high on my bucket list. The insane 7.83-mile ring can be seen from space. Built in 1975 by Fiat, it was repaved and made safer by current owner Porsche Engineering in 2018 so teams could achieve a maximum of up to 255 mph while cornering. Lesser known, Nardò’s Handling Track was built in 2008 by the previous guardians of the place, the Prototipo Group.
It’s a 3.86-mile mini Nürburgring, with seven right-hand corners and nine to the left. It features great elevation changes, and even a small jump taken at over 120 mph. Ferrari has Fiorano, but many other manufacturers pay Porsche good money to validate cars here.
For its faster models, Volkswagen uses Monza for brake testing, Ehra-Lessien for top speed and other calibration runs, Nardò for handling setups as well as emissions testing on the ring, Sweden for all-wheel drive, and just three times a year, the Nürburgring for additional fine-tuning and record attempts.
Work on the Lamborghini Revuelto’s unique layout began in 2019, and the first pre-series car left the factory in August 2022. The more you think about it, the wilder the picture gets.
At this early drive event, I was allowed to bother Lamborghini CTO Rouven Mohr, Head of Design Mitja Borkert; Head of Vehicle Development Victor Underberg of former Audi Sport fame; UX and Graphic Designer Luca Proglio; and R&D chief Davide Bizzarri, who is Head of Vehicle Motion and Energy management. What does that even mean? It points towards the fact that Davide spent nine years at Ferrari before heading to McLaren for another nine. He then left Woking for Lamborghini just three years ago. In other words, Davide Bizzarri had something to do with almost every major supercar of the last two decades, with a special emphasis on hybrids. LaFerrari, the P1, the new Artura, you name it.
From our chats, I learned that the 165-pound battery pack located where the transmission used to be is made by Valmet and features LG Chem pouch cells. The front e-motors—which rev to 3500 rpm and produce 147 hp—are supplied by Yasa. The rear axial-flux motor from Mahle revs to 10,000 rpm and also makes 147 hp. That rev-happy unit is integrated into the eight-speed, transversely-mounted DCT behind the engine. This new wet double-clutch transmission is made by Dana, and Lamborghini will also use it in the Huracán’s successor, which will likely get an electrified V-8.
The team had an Aventador SVJ at hand to show what has changed since the Nürburgring record of 2018. The previous V-12 has evolved a lot in 11 years, and both the SVJ and the final Ultimae cars are highly engaging and capable honorary Batmobiles. That is thanks to their more powerful engines, rear-axle steering, much firmer suspension, and clever active aero. With such improvements onboard, driving an Aventador hard on a fast track only shows how this generation still loves to move around under heavy braking, surprise you with the torque delivery of the Graziano single-clutch automatic, or understeer into and oversteer out of difficult corners. You have to be on your toes.
Personally, I love that about late Aventadors, because the rush created by the combination of eagerness, harshness, and drama reminds me of my equally enthusiastic drive of the last Countach ever made, the famous silver 25th Anniversary.
If the Aventador’s theme is to tame it, the Revuelto’s is to push it, because the all-new, lighter, and more rigid carbon fiber platform takes fast driving to a whole new level. It begins with the always-active front axle that supplies up to 187 hp to the mix in Corsa mode, for up to ten seconds with the battery above fifty percent of charge. Then continues with torque vectoring that includes momentary changes in the rotational direction of the wheels. Additionally, the drivetrain uses excess torque after liftoff, and then ABS energy to charge the battery. The system can reach up to 0.3 gs in regenerative braking alone, which helps keep brake temperatures at bay.
In practice, you’d expect to feel some of this going on, but it all comes through so naturally. Lamborghini worked hard to ensure short and linear pedal travel, a clear bite point for the brakes, and progressive steering with a negative gradient for better perception of the grip limit. Engineers say we shouldn’t notice what the systems are doing at all.
What we can take notice of is that—with 814 hp from the combustion side and another 188 hp from the electric motors—there’s never a shortage in acceleration. Yet the real magic happens in the corners, where the Revuelto corrects mistakes, eliminates understeer, and pulls itself towards the next straight as if decelerating 3906 pounds of a mid-engine poster car over and over is no trouble at all.
There’s a predictive algorithm hard at work, 70 percent more handling downforce overall, and then a 20 percent higher push in final acceleration. In layman's terms, the Revuelto just keeps getting faster, regardless of how close you get to 9500 rpm in sixth gear.
The performance of this sixth-generation car is so high straight out of the box, I can only wonder what an S, an SV, an SVJ, a Jota, or perhaps a Wallace edition could be like. I’m hoping for something a bit more terrifying, because if anything, the Revuelto feels too easy to live with compared to its mighty and often intimidating predecessors. That is until you engage the burnout mode, which switches off all nannies, and allows you to shift and control the rear axle while smoking the 345-wide rubber at up to 87 mph in third gear.
Lamborghini developed the DCT’s software in-house, spending a lot of time on the simulator. The compact eight-speed has neat party tricks, like holding revs at the same level for the smoothest downshifts. Compared to the Aventador’s outdated automated manual, the new Dana is lightning-fast and very effortless. This transverse layout of the DCT was necessary to keep the wheelbase in check. It still grows three inches longer to provide a more spacious cabin than the Aventador’s. The center of gravity also moved forward, partly thanks to the dense battery in the central tunnel.
On the outside, Nelson Simões and Mitja Borkert penned a car that’s just barely within regulations. That’s why the rear fender exposes a section of the massive tires, and why the V-12 is now completely exposed to the elements. It’s a cool design showing off the goods, and given the generated heat, the amount of rain a Lamborghini usually sees should evaporate just fine.
All the sharp angles feel correct, the stance and proportions are pure Lamborghini, the hexagons are prominent, and the exhaust is now shorter than ever, despite being globally certified without the high-pitch-killing particulate filter.
Inside, the new cabin offers not only more leg and shoulder room, but also the latest in entertainment and comfort functions, including a screen in front of the passenger.
Driving this prototype at high pace around Nardò’s truly special Handling Track was an absolute privilege, and with Revueltos already sold out for at least two years, I wouldn’t bet against this more accessible V-12 beating previous production records in the long run. Lamborghini nailed it, and while there’s a lot to like about the rawness of its predecessors, the Revuelto’s real performance is a stunning baseline for whatever faster, wilder variants Lamborghini will inevitably launch.
You Might Also Like
