Hall of fame
It’s one of the greatest man-made noises and part of supercar lore. And its story isn’t over
The CAR Hall of Fame immortalises the people, the ideas and the cars that changed – or are changing – the game. Submit your nominees to ben.miller@bauermedia.co.uk
Talk about getting it right first time. When Ferruccio Lamborghini briefed Giotto Bizzarrini (the ex-Ferrari engineer with the 250 GTO on his CV) to create an engine to power Lamborghini’s first car, the man did good. The 350 GT grand tourer was a car born to settle a personal grudge and exceed the quality of any road car Maranello was turning out at the time. That was 1964; two years later the 60° quad-cam V12 (not least because Ferrari was using single overhead camshafts per bank) had been bored out from 3.5 to 3.9 litres and turned sideways to fit in the Miura, and the world was changed.
That Bizzarrini engine – or at least its block and the essence of its design – lasted all the way to the Murcielago LP670-4 SV at the end of 2010. By then it was displacing 6.5 litres and making a not unimpressive 661bhp. In the interim, it had powered the iconic Countach (in which its gearbox cannily protruded straight from the engine forwards into the cabin) and the fearsome Diablo. It was the imaginary soundtrack to a million bedroom-wall posters and a core part of the spine-tingling story of the supercar – and by extension, of the car and of car culture itself.
Happily, the V12 will live on. A second-generation 6.5-litre 60° V12 was signed off by Lamborghini’s VW Group owners for the Aventador – which itself has just driven off into the his
