I didn’t develop up idolizing Steve McQueen, nor did I ever think about myself sliding a Mustang by means of the streets of San Francisco in pursuit of that ominous Charger. I by no means dreamed of operating from the cops in a Challenger like Barry Newman, and the one Italian Job I bear in mind seeing was made in 2003.
My favourite film automobile scene isn’t a basic. It’s from 2008, lasts no various minutes, and ends in a crash. As Coleman Reese is moments from revealing Batman’s true identification on dwell tv, the Joker calls the present, threatening to explode a hospital, that’s, except somebody kills Reese inside 60 minutes. After watching the TV in his penthouse, Bruce Wayne is seen racing by means of Gotham visitors in a automobile that might solely ever be Batman’s: his Grigio Telesto Lamborghini Murcielago LP 640.
The scene ends in a flash, comprised of solely a handful of traffic-dicing pictures underscored by the V12’s howl. It culminates as Wayne deliberately slots the LP 640 between the police SUV Reese is in and an incoming pickup truck, totaling it. Nonetheless, this scene’s brevity doesn’t detract from its influence. For a technology of lovers, myself included, the Murcielago will at all times be Batman’s automobile.
V12 Lambos have by no means simply been about pace or energy; these are deeply emotional machines. Carry up the Countach in a room of lovers born within the 70s and 80s, and also you gained’t hear reward for its efficiency. You’ll be handled to tales, recollections of the primary time they noticed one drive by, or the primary glimpse of 1 in a film, birthing an unflinching need to personal one.
I don’t envy the engineering and design groups tasked with deciding what the subsequent V12 Raging Bull can be. Though we’re speaking about only a automobile right here, the large Lambos don’t simply dwell within the bodily world. They moonlight in folks’s imaginations. And as I’m watching the 2024 Lamborghini Revuelto drive out of a transport truck, I’m not questioning whether or not it’ll be good to drive. What issues most is that this: is the Revuelto a automobile price dreaming about?
Just like the Countach, you don’t need to drive the Reuvelto to get caught in its gravitational pull. It’s huge. Taller and longer than an Aventador, though solely marginally wider, it’s made up of sharp angles in a jet-fighter meets cyberpunk sort of approach. The Lamborghini Revuelto is an occasion as a V12 Raging Bull must be. It’s a center finger to normalcy and a rejection of the standard. It creates pressure wherever it goes, leaving lovers and normies alike entranced.
The sensation falls someplace between impressed and confused. Highway automobiles simply don’t appear to be this, and its magnetism isn’t a results of branding or a singular design motif; it’s pushed nearly completely by form and proportion. So, as you attempt to peer by means of its varied intakes, look down into its unshielded engine bay, or soak up its sheer scale, you possibly can’t simply take in the influence of its design. You’re equally puzzled by the truth that connected to the rear of its excessive type is a license plate.
Like Bruce Wayne, I cube by means of night visitors in a Grigio Telesto V12 Lambo, romanticizing an in any other case forgettable dash towards the mountains. The jet-fighter vibes intensify when you pull down its scissor door, flip its purple begin button cowl, and set off.
In an atypical twist amongst older Raging Bulls, the Lamborghini Revuelto truly cares about its occupants. The place a Countach says, “Cope with it” to anybody taller or heavier than a mouse, the Revuelto counters with extra head and legroom than an Aventador. There’s even a tiny space for storing behind its seats and beneath its floating heart console. You can nearly name it sensible.
Whereas factions of the previous guard will without end really feel {that a} correct V12 Lambo needs to be uncompromising, the Revuelto’s concentrate on practicality aligns with tendencies common amongst much less pre-historic consumers who use their automobiles often. Nonetheless, this Raging Bull goes about its modernization with a way of flash. Whereas there’s now a central 8.4-inch touchscreen, a passenger show, and an enormous digital gauge cluster, its steering wheel is suffering from buttons and knobs.
As Prime Gun as the entire thing is, the wheel’s structure is sort of video-game-like in its density. I can’t assist however really feel for the supplier reps who’ll have to elucidate to prospects that controls for the drive modes, hybrid system, entrance carry, and lively aero sit inside inches of one another and look nearly indistinguishable at first look. To not point out the headlight, wiper, indicator, and driver help buttons additionally vying for house. The place the Aventador was uncluttered and albeit dated, the Revuelto overcorrects with sensory overload. It’s nonetheless classicly Lambo, then.
On the base of a mountain north of Los Angeles, the place winding roads slice by means of an enormous forest, I poke and twist till the Lamborghini Revuelto is at its most aggressive—1,015 horsepower. You’re rewarded with that determine solely whenever you dial the suitable mixture amongst 13 modes. Corsa serves up max energy, with Sport stepping right down to 895 hp and Strada to 874 hp. The quantity shrinks to a mere 177 hp in its totally electrical mode, however I’m getting forward of myself.
Its energy, though immense, isn’t what makes the Revuelto the stuff of desires. EVs have lengthy since democratized pace to the purpose of bordering on unimpressive. As a substitute, in an age of engine downsizing, pressured induction, and pretend exhaust notes, Lamborghini counters with one of the crucial thrilling inside combustion engines of all time. This isn’t hyperbole. The Revuelto’s brand-new 6.5-liter naturally-aspirated V12 revs to 9,500 rpm and produces one of the crucial intoxicating noises of any street automobile up to now.
The truth that it could actually produce 814 hp by itself, 34 hp greater than the Aventador Ultimae, is eclipsed solely by its tach extending by a full 1,000 revs over its predecessor’s 8,500-rpm max. That’s, greater than a Porsche 911 GT3 RS or a Ferrari 12Cilindri. You’d need to ring up Gordon Murray to surpass it.
Lamborghini doesn’t simply complement the Revuelto’s coronary heart with pure cocaine. It ensures these revs flip into as a lot pace as doable by ditching the slow-but-characterful single-clutch computerized of previous and changing it with a a lot swifter dual-clutch unit. It’s going through the unsuitable approach and in additional methods than one, aligned transversely and positioned behind the engine. The V12 itself flips 180 levels to accommodate a 3.8-kilowatt-hour battery pack in what would’ve been its transmission tunnel.
And I’ve but to inform you in regards to the a minimum of three electrical motors onboard: one built-in into the transmission and two on the entrance axle. Just like the Aventador, the Revuelto is all-wheel drive, with the pair of motors upfront routing energy to every wheel individually. This enables for true torque vectoring, though the brakes will step in when obligatory. Nonetheless, the first profit is the choice for silent begins in EV mode and the flexibility to cruise on electrons for round six miles.
The Lamborghini Revuelto is a technological powerhouse. I’m not satisfied it’s greatest categorized as a supercar; hyper appears extra acceptable. And whereas its plug-in hybrid configuration will undoubtedly piss off the Luddites, its electrification exists nearly purely in service of its V12.
Because the revs climb previous 3,000 rpm, the Revuelto’s engine finds its voice. It howls by means of its hexagonal exhaust suggestions, making a shriek contained in the cabin. It’s loud. It’s louder than any GT4 RS and sufficient to go away your ears ringing inside minutes. Any try to hearken to music is pointless at excessive revs. Nothing overshadows its V12. I choose up the tempo and really feel an prompt response from the onboard electrical motors, a fast shove adopted by a kick as soon as the interior combustion engine comes on cam.
I’ve skilled acceleration like this earlier than, however I used to be driving a Bugatti Chiron Tremendous Sport. It’s overwhelming in the most effective sense doable. It’s as loud as it’s fast, with each efficiency and drama rising in step. At the same time as your imaginative and prescient blurs, you look down and understand you continue to have a number of thousand revs to go.
The Lamborghini Revuelto asks you to belief it, each within the straights because it picks up pace like a hypercar and within the bends the place the aforementioned tech wizardry goes to work tackling the bends. Its mechanical grip is staggering, aided by its 265/35 and 345/30 part Bridgestone Potenza Sport rubber.
Nonetheless, it’s the seamless torque vectoring that impresses most. One thing this huge shouldn’t nook prefer it does and shouldn’t really feel as nimble or as keen to vary route. Particularly not one whose curb weight effectively surpasses 4,000 lb.
But the Revuelto does. To say that it’s a dynamic leap from the Aventador could be a serious understatement. It’s in a separate league, however crucially, it’s much more theatrical. If its steering offered some semblance of suggestions, not feeling completely disconnected from the automobile beneath, I’d be tempted to deliver out the P-word.
Perfection is at the very least one of the simplest ways to explain its method to electrification. Though emissions rules mandate its hybridity, Lamborghini might’ve swapped its V12 for one thing smaller, doubtless aided by turbocharges. As a substitute, the oldsters in Sant’Agata Bolognese opted to have a look at this required shift as a chance. It’s a likelihood to make sure that its V12 legacy carries on, and if a few batteries and electrical motors are what it takes for these unbelievable high-revving engines to exist, so be it.
If there’s something to lament, it’s that automobiles just like the Lamborghini Revuelto, the ultimate bastions of atmospheric aspiration, proceed to skyrocket in value. The 2024 Lamborghini Revuelto I’ve been driving begins at $612,858, together with vacation spot and fuel guzzler charges. The final V12 Lambo I drove, the Aventador Ultimae, requested for $507,353 earlier than choices. This Grigio Telesto automobile, with its numerous carbon choices, is available in at $744,958.
I gained’t try to classify whether or not the Revuelto is price what it prices, as a result of it’s in the end not one thing you take into account shopping for. You’re both repulsed by its eccentricity or so profoundly entranced by its form, sound, and efficiency that having one turns into a necessity. It’s a draw highly effective sufficient to lose sleep over, to be pressured to dream about.
Tracing a lineage to icons just like the Countach is nice advertising, even when the one resemblance is a wedge form and 12 cylinders. Nonetheless, like that icon of the 70s and 80s, the Revuelto captures the essence of what a V12 Lambo must be: emotional, thrilling, and crucially, not delicate. A persona Alfred Pennyworth completely encapsulates as Wayne heads for the elevator:
Alfred: Will you be wanting the Batpod, sir?
Bruce: In the midst of the day, Alfred? Not very delicate.
Alfred: The Lamborghini, then. Way more delicate.
