The 1001bhp Revuelto is the new V12 flagship Lamborghini supercar
The Revuelto has Aventador-sized shoes to fill, and yet it appears to hold its own
All new models get named after iconic bulls – a tradition followed by Lamborghini, not necessarily since its inception, but most certainly since it started putting out pin-up poster cars for the world to drool over. The latest one, the Aventador’s successor, follows suit as it’s called the Lamborghini Revuelto. It’s named after a bull that achieved almost celebrity status in the bullfighting ring of Barcelona in the 1880s but means “mixed up” when loosely translated into English. And considering what this Aventador successor has to offer, the English translation does substantiate it.
Kicking things off with the most evident mix-up in the new Lamborghini Revuelto – a hybrid powertrain. The V12 lives on, thanks to the almighty and the head honchos at Lamborghini, who managed to keep this dinosaur powertrain alive in this electrified era. The 6.5-litre V12 engine may sound familiar, but it is an all-new and lighter unit featuring new bits on the crankshaft, valvetrain, a modified air intake system, and a more powerful compression ratio to produce 814bhp. The 814bhp V12 gets mated to three electric motors, two mounted on the front axle and the third integrated into the new eight-speed dual-clutch transmission.
For the first time in Lamborghini’s flagship history, the gearbox sits behind the combustion engine and gets positioned transversely. The freed-up gearbox space gets filled by a 3.8kWh lithium-ion battery pack. It would be an enormous task to find the term ‘efficiency’ in any Lamborghini brochure, and even for the Revuelto, it barely makes the cut as this new supercar can be driven in no-emissions EV mode for…. wait for it…. 13 km. Instead of utilising electricity to make the Revuelto kinder to the polar bears, which it still manages to do with a 30 per cent emissions reduction, Lamborghini has used it to spice up its signature recipe – performance. When the 814bhp V12 is combined with the tri-electric-motor setup, the Lamborghini Revuelto can put out 1,001bhp in maximum attack Corsa mode. For the layman, that translates to a 0-100kph sprint time of 2.5secs and a top speed of 349kph.
There is no dearth of crazy-looking Lamborghini supercars (the Sian, Reventon, the Veneno….the list goes on and on), but the Revuelto’s design treads more on the path of evolution than revolution to be Lamborghini’s first mass-produced plug-in hybrid supercar. Stylised cuts and slashes galore on the Revuelto’s all-new body, with hints of the Huracan Tecnica seen around the new headlights. The angled slashes on the Revuelto’s side profile make the Aventador look bland. The rear has been tapered to achieve a sleek profile for better aerodynamics with a centrally-mounted dual exhaust setup and a diffuser that extends well beyond usual limits.
Much to the benefit of passengers who’d have required a tetanus shot every time they sat inside, the Revuelto’s cockpit doesn’t feature as many slashes as the exterior. Instead, the cabin boasts a more modern, systematic and, dare I say, sober profile. The steering wheel is a new piece with more buttons and knobs than ever. The instrument cluster resides in a rather sleek-looking binnacle. The infotainment system gets integrated into a new protruding element on the dashboard with a new screen embedded ahead of the co-passenger seat. The usual dramatic elements, such as the red flip starter button with jet fighter-cockpit-resembling toggle switches, find their way on the Revuelto along with a 360-degree camera setup as sitting on the door sill to reverse a Lamborghini seems unacceptable in the future. And did I mention the Lamborghini Revuelto offers 13 driving modes?
Mechanically, the Revuelto has made significant advances to better the drive dynamics of the Aventador. Gone is the F1-derived pushrod suspension from the predecessor, and in comes a double wishbone multi-link set-up with magnetic dampers. The front and rear anti-roll bars are stiffer. The brakes are bigger than ever and feature new-generation carbon ceramic discs from Lamborghini. The electric motor integrated gearbox is lighter and more space efficient, offering faster shifting than the Huracan and significantly quicker than the Aventador. The chassis is also all-new, and Lamborghini calls it ‘monofuselage’ and is said to be 10 per cent lighter than the one on the Aventador.
The details, be it on exterior design or mechanical advancements, would require a separate post, so it’s better to subside your inner geek for a few moments and just let the magnificence of an all-new Lamborghini after a decade-long wait sink in.
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