SUPER RIDE!
LAMBORGHINI HAS CREATED THE ULTIMATE TRACK WEAPON WITH THE AVENTADOR SVJ.
CIRCUITO ESTORIL, PORTUGAL • Let’s just forget all this nonsense about driving aids emasculating the modern supercar, shall we? Yes, I know all you manly men out there rue the very invention of electronic stability control, how you long for the days when Dodge Vipers ruled the earth and mere mortals were afraid to mash throttles. The good old days, I think you call them, the implication being that supercars have gone soft, mushy and — perhaps worst of all — accessible.
Ah, but then there’s Lamborghini. Never quite as civilized as Ferrari nor as sophisticated as McLaren, Sant’Agata’s new SVJ — as in Appendix J of the old time FIA racing regs, which set the rules for turning a production car, say a Miura, into one that would be allowed to race — may be “blessed” with digital minders of its own, but it sure doesn’t act like it.
So, despite boasting fourwheel steering, despite the super high-tech aerodynamics, and despite — or probably because of — Lamborghini’s freewheeling Italian interpretation of stability control, when you mash the SVJ’s big 400-millimetre carbon-ceramic brakes at the end of Estoril’s incredibly long back straight, the SVJ’s rear end performs a jaunty little (very) high-speed tail wag.
Plunk it into sport mode — when 90 per cent of its now fortified 531 poundfeet of torque go to the rear wheels instead of the more stable 80 per cent in the track-based Corsa mode — and even those huge 355/25ZR21 rear Pirellis (PZero Corsas no less) squirm under the assault of 12 hyperkinetic pistons.
Throw it, way faster than you really ought to, into Estoril’s long sweeping Turn 13 and revel in the traditional Lambo ability to steer with the throttle as much as the wheel.
This is vehicle control management, Lamborghini style. Adaptive Network Intelligent Management is the official name for the Aventador’s system. And unlike, say, American VSC systems (such as the impressively adroit PTM system that masks the Chevrolet Camaro’s otherwise clumsy chassis) and English versions (McLaren’s ESC is so ruthlessly precise it renders its cars a bit anesthetized) Lamborghini’s ANIMA feels like an integral part of the design brief, less Band-aid and much more organic.
Indeed, it is only through the magic of some of these electronic minders that the Aventador has been rendered super. What was once chronically sloppy oversteer has been become razorsharp Ferrari-like front-end grip. The feeling of heftiness — the SVJ still weighs in at a somewhat-portly-fora-supercar 1,525 kilograms — is now almost completely disguised.
Indeed, the Aventador has been rendered even more super in SVJ guise, not despite its high-tech, but because of it. In fact, by one measure — albeit the guideline that most aficionados use as their measure of a supercar’s, well, super-ness — Lamborghini has created the ultimate track weapon.
Yes, the SVJ, as numerous press releases have spouted, just set a new lap record, 6:44.97, around the Nordschleife. That makes it faster than any of the hyper hybrids (Porsche’s 918 and Ferrari’s LaFerrari), Porsche’s lightly disguised 911 GT2 RS race car, and even the Radical SR8 LM. Nothing on street tires is faster round the Nürburgring than the Aventador SVJ.
All of the credit — quite literally all — must go to (sorry, guys) yet another a computer-controlled driving aid: the vectoring aerodynamics. Officially named Aerodinamica Lamborghini Attiva, ALA is perhaps the most sophisticated aerodynamic package on a modern supercar. Oh, the McLaren Senna ultimately boasts more peak downforce — 800 kilograms to the Lambo’s 500 — and the Ford GT a slipperier silhouette. But Lambo’s ALA 2.0 (the first generation was implemented on the recent Performante version of the Huracán) is the most sophisticated aerodynamics package available from an automaker.
Not only can the SVJ balance the amount of aerodynamic downforce front to rear, but also side to side. Lamborghini calls it “aero vectoring,” which simply means that it can distribute more downforce — up to 20 per cent more, says Maurizio Reggiani, Lamborghini’s chief technical officer — to the inside rear wheel than the outside, effectively counteracting the weight transfer that results from hard cornering.
All you anoraks claiming that cars — supercars especially — were better “back when” really do need to get a new line of B.S.
A few of you have no doubt noticed my glaring omission of Lamborghini’s incredible 6.5-litre V12. That’s because it is largely carried over. Though relatively little changed — titanium intake valves, bigger lump camshafts and some revised intake tuning are the reasons for its 20-hp boost — it is no less magnificent. Incredibly controllable (for 760 hp), the Lambo’s naturally aspirated throttle is much more easily modulated than a turbocharged engine’s. It’s also scary fast, the SVJ nudging 290 km/h at the top end of Estoril’s almost kilometrelong back straight.
And the sound! Turbocharging may be conducive to emissions-friendly power. It may even be the only way that supercars survive ever tightening emissions rules, but they sound about as exotic as what a cohort of mine described as angry vacuum cleaners.
But, not the Lambo. And now that BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Aston Martin have all turbocharged their V12s, and even Ferrari is toying with the dark side, Lamborghini’s stubborn resistance in the face of the mounting pressure of emissions regulation is perhaps our last, certainly our best, hope that we’ll still be able to appreciate the greatest sound in internal combustion.
Lamborghini’s 2019 Aventador SVJ will cost US$517,770 — no Canadian price has been set — and will be available next spring.