Lamborghini’s new hypercar retains its predecessor’s V12 and adds a healthy dose of electricity. Does more power mean more fun?
WORDS OLLIE MARRIAGE
Lamborghini has often felt like the last dinosaur, roaring forlornly in the face of electric’s meteoric impact. No more. The Revuelto is a revolutionary Raging Bull. The replacement for the Aventador, Lamborghini’s biggest beast, is now a plug-in hybrid. It features three electric motors, there is no reverse gear, that’s done electrically. There’s no clumsiness either – the handling is far more sophisticated, so too the electrical integration. The gearbox no longer thrashes your head back and forth like a metaller in a mosh pit. There’s more space in the cabin and – hallelujah – the seats are no longer as pious as a church pew, but instead embrace and coddle.
The technical make-up is nothing particularly new. With an e-motor for each front wheel, plus another between engine and gearbox, drawing power from a slimline battery tucked down behind the seats, it puts the same pieces in the same places as the Porsche 918 Spider did a decade ago. A template copied by everything from the Honda NSX to the Revuelto’s closest rival from down the Po valley, Ferrari’s SF90.
But this one has a V12. Everyone else has downsized, fitted turbocharged V6s or V8s – they’ve kept the power, but arguably lost a little charisma. Not the Revuelto. Yes you can drive it around on electric, but only for about 6–8 miles because the battery is a piddling 3.8kWh. Electric is the support act, the V12 is the gloriously flamboyant star of the show.
The 6.5-litre nat-asp L545 engine is the lightest, most powerful 12 cylinder ever made by Lamborghini. It’s been rotated through 180°, putting the gearbox out the back rather than in front (as that’s where the battery now sits). And the transmission is no longer the dreadful ISR single shaft gearbox that felt old even when the Aventador was launched back in 2011, but a brand new eight-speed twin clutch. That’s only connected to the rear wheels of course. The fronts are driven by electricity. And algorithms.
The Revuelto’s fiery heart develops 814bhp. Electricity thickens this
