Lamborghini Revuelto | PH Favourite Cars 2024
Hybridising a V12-powered supercar seemed like a tall order even for Lamborghini. We should've known better...
The Lamborghini Revuelto, it’s fair to say, took a long time getting here. It was officially revealed in March of 2023, and we first drove it in October of that year. But that experience was initially limited to Nardó and Vallelunga. We didn’t drive the car on the road till this year, and not in the UK until the summer. So while the car featured as an honourable mention at the end of 2023, no one who had driven it at the time could be completely sure that its performance on track would transfer convincingly to the sort of asphalt that occasionally causes cyclists to veer into the path of lorries. A year later, any shred of doubt is gone. The Revuelto is a 21st-century masterpiece.
I feel secure saying this even in light of its imperfections. In several important ways, some of them crucial to the objective greatness of any mid-engined supercar, it is arguably less perfect than the new McLaren 750S - effectively Woking’s final throw of the analogue dice, and another very good reason to get out of bed in 2024. We needn’t get hung up on relative strengths here: we’re playing favourites, not reviewing the finer points - but the 750S was scintillatingly alive on B roads that would likely stifle the much heavier Revuelto. That it didn’t ultimately overcome the Lamborghini says much about the remarkable spell its maker has weaved elsewhere.
Doubly so when you consider that this is, technically speaking at least, a plug-in hybrid we’re talking about. One tasked with replacing the Aventador; a model that, after a decade on sale, Lamborghini had finally fashioned into the theatre of V12 dreams it always threatened to be. The run-out Ultimae edition was so good, John H had it as his favourite car of the year back in 2022. The 'Old Testament of combustion' he called it, and he was not alone in cherishing its fire and brimstone way of doing things. Lamborghini confirmed the Revuelto would feature a V12 long before we saw it, of course - correctly identifying, as Ferrari and Aston Martin and Bugatti have all done, that a high cylinder count remains essential to its vision for the New Testament, regardless of the add-ons.
There’s no denying that these are considerable. From Lamborghini’s point of view, it is convenient that the car’s predecessor did not owe its lasting reputation to svelteness, because the Revuelto has been forced to bulk up like an Italian winger bound for the Premier League. It is significantly longer, taller and heavier than the Aventador - and vastly more complex. While the new 60-degree, 6.5-litre engine is a descendant of the old V12, its comprehensive redesign was not just about permitting greater output at higher speeds (825hp at 9,250rpm) but also about spinning it through 180 degrees so that it could power the rear wheels exclusively via an all-new transverse, eight-speed dual-clutch transmission.
And that’s because the front axle is now solely the preserve of two oil-cooled 150hp electric motors, powering a wheel apiece, and fed by a 3.8kWh battery mounted in the spine of what Lamborghini calls an ‘aviation-inspired’ carbon fibre monofuselage. For good measure - and contributing to the 193kg mass of the new gearbox - there’s an additional 150hp motor mounted at the back that doubles as both starter and generator. It can drive the giant, 355-section rear wheels independently of the V12, which, alongside everything else it can claim to be, makes the Revuelto an all-wheel-drive EV. For about six miles.
Anyone lucky enough to have experienced the life-affirming pleasure of firing the Aventador’s V12 into life will not relish the sound of silence that greets you in the default Citta mode - although when you’re arriving at (and leaving) a Yorkshire Dales AirBnB adjacent to the owner’s house in the dark, it’s easy enough to appreciate. Especially as to get to that point you’ll have already spent several wordless moments admiring the Revuelto - or, if anyone is standing nearby, talking them around it. As a way of meeting strangers, the car gives up nothing to its predecessor. It’s like carrying an Olsen twin around on your back: people want to know which one it is and why precisely you are with it. Understandably, they will then politely ask if it’s okay to take a picture.
Unless you’re made of stone, this curious capacity for making the world a car fan is quite something. No explanation of its relative coolness is seemingly ever required. The Revuelto, much as the Aventador did, just sits there, looking like a cross between a child’s drawing and a rip in time, and inadvertently cheers everyone up. That its cost exceeds the average price of a house in the UK, and takes up a wasteful amount of space while quaffing its way through a wasteful amount of fuel, is apparently of no concern to anyone. Precious few supercars - or expensive variants of any model - are so easily spared judgement. And there is only so much goodwill you can absorb before it starts to rub off on you as a cheery, Santa-like glow.
Chances are, this will stay with you as the butterfly door clunk shut. The Revuelto is airier than the Aventador, and better appointed. You’ll need a moment to familiarise yourself with the steering wheel controls (though it boils down simply enough: drive modes on the left, hybrid functions on the right) but getting comfy comes easier, on the condition that you’ve brought nothing with you more cumbersome than a mobile phone. The absence of storage inside is partly a consequence of the battery placement, although otherwise the practical sacrifice required is slight, assuming you’ve dispensed with the absurdly bulky cable case that arrives in the frunk. Happily, Lamborghini no more expects you to plug the car into a charger than it expects you to stay in Citta mode for a nanosecond longer than your sense of decorum dictates. As God surely intended, whenever the dinky battery runs out of puff - which it never does completely - there’s an enormous petrol generator on hand to recharge it in a matter of minutes.
Be that as it may, that the V12 does not automatically and overwhelmingly set the tone is something to get used to. This is a temporary circumstance, sure - it's like being in an emergency board meeting with Bruce Wayne; sooner or later, something is going to give. Nevertheless, unlike the Aventador, which was broadly speaking about as chill as putting your hand in a wood burner, the Revuelto lets its driver choose when to flick the Bat-Signal on. Drive it as a hybrid, lazily and without intent, in Strada, and the electric motors will bear the brunt of any modest, low-end acceleration in seamless partnership with the game-changing new gearbox. It is about as stressful as a Sonntag morn. So much so that you’ll probably opt to pull a giant paddle toward you early doors, just to make sure the V12 still whirrs into bolt-upright readiness like its predecessor. I did this quite a lot on the M6, in between marvelling at the much-improved visibility and the presence of cupholders. Like all gateway drugs, it’s hard to resist.
Simmering away beneath the powertrain's high polish is the remarkable civility of the new double wishbone suspension. The attentive, conciliatory response of the MagneRide dampers in their softer setting is doubtless underwritten by the gains in rigidity achieved elsewhere, yet it will seem nothing short of revelatory to any Aventador owner trading in old for new: I'll bet the Revuelto was no more tiring to drive 300 miles north than John's self-financed Skoda Superb. It is so assured in its journey-shortening plushness that you almost start to fear for its incisiveness. But, in fact, it’s not a mellowing out at all; the more miles you accrue, the more you realise that it's a fundamental reset of the control surfaces and the perceived level of consistency they deliver. The Aventador felt like it needed strong-arming everywhere; the Revuelto, certainly at steady-state speeds, wants you to locate those hand-on-the-tiller moments where it all happens intuitively.
Making a 1000-horsepower petrol-electric car seem satisfyingly easy to drive is one deeply impressive thing; making it also seem wieldy and exploitable and thoroughly joined-up is quite another. And yet the progression from commuting to baritone, bug-eyed craziness is made to seem not just manageable, but scaleable to whatever mood you’re in. Click the Revuelto into Sport and you get much more insistent V12ness and a perceptibly more serious setup across the board, but always with one eye on the sweet spot between playfulness and dynamic overload - which is some achievement from a car juggling fully electric torque vectoring at the front and rear-wheel steer behind before you get to the monster in its middle. That the car never quite shrinks itself down to the intimate scale of a 750S is understandable; that it can marshal its forces to the extent where you feel not just comfortable to push on, but compelled to do so by the pinpoint deftness of the fixed-ratio steering, brakes, suspension and transmission is easily compensation enough.
Especially when you factor the build-up of speed back in, which is, there’s no two ways about it, astonishing. The Aventador’s irascible, wham-bam acceleration has been replaced with the sort of motor-augmented, dual-clutch-enabled relentlessness that would be exhausting were it merely grafted onto the chassis. The Revuelto’s triumph is to make upwards of 900hp (in Corsa) seem like a harmonious, malleable ingredient, even as it pushes down on you with the viciousness of a lit booster rocket. The V12’s capacity for shock and awe, positioned on high, is as tantalising as ever, yet the wider sensory reward for journeying there - and staying longer - is the real pay-off. Where the Aventador tended to corral its pyrotechnics into bruising, explosive moments of brilliance, the Revuelto draws out the experience to operatic lengths, being no less incendiary, just sleeker and cleverer and better. And it will do all this while retaining the ability to slip you silently across a (small) city, smooth out a motorway and scintillate a nation. An electrified Lamborghini, then - in every possible sense.
SPECIFICATION | 2024 LAMBORGHINI REVUELTO
Engine: 6,498cc V12, triple motor hybrid assistance, 3.8kWh battery
Transmission: 8-speed twin-clutch, rear-wheel drive plus twin motor electric front axle
Power (hp): 1,015 (total system peak)@9,250rpm
Torque (lb ft): 535@6,750rpm (total system TBC)
0-62mph: 2.5sec
Top speed: 218mph
Weight: 1,911kg
MPG: 23.8
CO2: N/A
Price: from £376,700 (plus VAT)
Honorable mention | Aston Martin Vanquish
Much as it was with the Revuelto last year, we haven’t driven the new Vanquish in the UK just yet. But Lordy, if the experience abroad is anything to go on, we’re in for a treat. Aston’s reasoning for sticking with a V12 is much the same as Lamborghini’s: its best customers really like it. But for now, the British firm has forsaken a future-friendly hybrid solution, and opted instead for a thoroughly overhauled evolution of its 5.2-litre turbocharged unit. It can’t quite rival the uncorked bullishness of the Revuelto’s performance - but you’ll hardly find time to quibble with the deficit, not when it’s lavishly complementing the Vanquish’s extraordinarily persuasive way of getting up a road. Aston’s knack for finding a middle way between hot rod and well-mannered GT might have finally found its zenith. And not a moment too soon.
I personally thinks it looks great (and probably drives great too!). Well done Lamborghini.
I think it looks and sounds monumental. Would own. And for once, based on the reviews the Aston is getting, I think the Ferrari 12 Clindri would be my third choice for a V12 supercar.
Also, I know those roads well, my 1 series feels to fast and even big in some places, adding 300mm of width and having 1000bhp is not what I think I’m lacking when driving round the dales!
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