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 working 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 automotive scene isn’t a traditional. It’s from 2008, lasts no various minutes, and ends in a crash. As Coleman Reese is moments from revealing Batman’s true id on reside tv, the Joker calls the present, threatening to explode a hospital, that’s, until somebody kills Reese inside 60 minutes. After watching the TV in his penthouse, Bruce Wayne is seen racing by means of Gotham site visitors in a automotive that would 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 photographs 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. Nevertheless, this scene’s brevity doesn’t detract from its influence. For a era of lovers, myself included, the Murcielago will all the time be Batman’s automotive.
V12 Lambos have by no means simply been about velocity or energy; these are deeply emotional machines. Deliver 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, reminiscences 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 automotive right here, the massive Lambos don’t simply reside 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 automotive price dreaming about?
Just like the Countach, you don’t need to drive the Reuvelto to get caught in its gravitational pull. It’s massive. Taller and longer than an Aventador, though solely marginally wider, it’s made up of sharp angles in a jet-fighter meets cyberpunk form of manner. The Lamborghini Revuelto is an occasion as a V12 Raging Bull needs to be. It’s a center finger to normalcy and a rejection of the traditional. It creates pressure wherever it goes, leaving lovers and normies alike entranced.
The sensation falls someplace between impressed and confused. Street automobiles simply don’t seem like this, and its magnetism isn’t a results of branding or a singular design motif; it’s pushed virtually completely by form and proportion. So, as you attempt to peer by means of its numerous intakes, look down into its unshielded engine bay, or absorb its sheer scale, you possibly can’t simply take up the influence of its design. You’re equally puzzled by the truth that connected to the rear of its excessive kind is a license plate.
Like Bruce Wayne, I cube by means of night site 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 crimson 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, “Take care of 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 would virtually name it sensible.
Whereas factions of the previous guard will without end really feel {that a} correct V12 Lambo must be uncompromising, the Revuelto’s concentrate on practicality aligns with tendencies in style amongst much less pre-historic consumers who use their automobiles commonly. 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 affected by 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 seller reps who’ll have to elucidate to prospects that controls for the drive modes, hybrid system, entrance raise, and lively aero sit inside inches of one another and look virtually 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 while you dial the appropriate 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 absolutely 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 velocity to the purpose of bordering on unimpressive. As an alternative, in an age of engine downsizing, pressured induction, and pretend exhaust notes, Lamborghini counters with some of the 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 some of the intoxicating noises of any highway automotive thus far.
The truth that it may well 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, increased 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 velocity as doable by ditching the slow-but-characterful single-clutch automated of previous and changing it with a a lot swifter dual-clutch unit. It’s dealing with the mistaken manner 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 let you know concerning 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 vital. Nevertheless, 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 categorised as a supercar; hyper appears extra applicable. And whereas its plug-in hybrid configuration will undoubtedly piss off the Luddites, its electrification exists virtually 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 depart your ears ringing inside minutes. Any try and hearken to music is pointless at excessive revs. Nothing overshadows its V12. I choose up the tempo and really feel an immediate 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 couple of thousand revs to go.
The Lamborghini Revuelto asks you to belief it, each within the straights because it picks up velocity 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.
Nevertheless, 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 alter course. 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 can be a significant 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 automotive beneath, I’d be tempted to deliver out the P-word.
Perfection is at the very least one of the best ways to explain its strategy to electrification. Though emissions rules mandate its hybridity, Lamborghini might’ve swapped its V12 for one thing smaller, seemingly aided by turbocharges. As an alternative, the parents in Sant’Agata Bolognese opted to take a look at this required shift as a possibility. It’s a probability 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 worth. 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 automotive, with its numerous carbon choices, is available in at $744,958.
I gained’t try and classify whether or not the Revuelto is price what it prices, as a result of it’s in the end not one thing you contemplate 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 sweet advertising and marketing, 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 needs to 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.
