Smarter Car Choices!

Overview

With a raucous 769-hp V-12 engine and an exotic exterior, the 2022 Lamborghini Aventador is the definition of a hyper car. While competitors such as the Ferrari SF90 embrace an electrified future, the Lambo’s 12-cylinder mill swills fuel like a frat bro chugs a beer. Its scissor doors, wide and low proportions, and heavily vented bodywork double as a theater on wheels that’s perpetually playing the Fast and Furious movies. Inside, its highly customizable cabin has room for two riders, but there’s very little space to store loose items. Behind the wheel, the driver can activate the Aventador’s shrieking soundtrack with a stab of their right foot or experience the massive machine’s surprising agility by twirling the tiller. While its obsolete automatic transmission is almost as frustrating as the roadster’s cumbersome roof removal, those are but a small penance for the 2022 Aventador’s otherwise awesome powers and unmistakable style.

INTERIOR

Should you never have the opportunity to slide aboard an SVJ, you can simulate the procedure by placing a child’s booster seat underneath your kitchen table. The roofline of this car is extraordinarily low – 60mm lower than a McLaren 720S – and the carbonfibre tub demands the seats are set deep within the broad footprint.

Considering how roomy and approachable a big-bore supercar like the 720S has been made to feel, it’s almost as though Lamborghini has wilfully crafted an ambience that is dark and intimidating.

Which, of course, it probably has. From within, the SVJ oozes drama. It is defined by its outlandish personality and is nothing if not single-minded: there are tight pouches flanking the broad, raised ‘transmission’ tunnel, but these hold little more than a passport and, elsewhere there is no dedicated stowage – not even a glovebox.

You might squeeze a couple of soft-shell jackets behind our car’s fully electric, heated seats, but the only realistic option is to use the awkwardly narrow cavity beneath the bonnet, which can barely accommodate a pair of full-face helmets. Even the 488 Pista, with its theatrical bonnet scoop, does better in this regard.

The cabin itself is little changed from previous iterations of the Aventador, albeit with more Alcantara and vast slabs of glossy carbonfibre for the door cards replete with leather pulls. There is good adjustability in the steering column and plenty of room for busy elbows, though head room is unforgivably poor and if the seats slid closer to the rear bulkhead, it would benefit taller drivers considerably.

While the Huracán has now graduated to a sizeable touchscreen display mounted on the transmission tunnel, the Aventador persists with the same meagre 7in readout it first launched with in 2011. That and the MMI switchgear are still clearly pilfered from the Audi parts bin of the time. The graphics are mediocre by today’s standards and the set-up desperately needs a clean-sheet redesign. Sat-nav and Apple CarPlay are available as a no-cost option, however, and allow you to bypass the unintuitive standard menus.

The TFT digital dashboard is larger and more impressive, if less sophisticated than what Porsche now provides. The readout alters its skin depending on driving mode, culminating in Corsa, where the tachometer is theatrically spread almost the entire width of the binnacle. As in the Huracán Performante, you’re also kept abreast of what the ALA system is doing, by way of a small graphic.

Lamborghini offers its Sensonum premium sound system (£3156), which performs reasonably well given the lack of cabin insulation. There is, however, an even better audio device that comes as standard, which we think you’ll prefer.

Much of the switchgear is the same found in Audi models two or more generations since departed, and so the central touchscreen from the recently released Huracán Evo cannot come soon enough. Certainly, the Aventador is feeling its age, both in terms of hardware and ergonomics.

And yet all the above pales to insignificance relative to the driver’s inability to see out of the SVJ. With such an elaborate engine cover, the effective rear blindspot encompasses anything behind the driver’s ears (mind you, Lamborghini didn’t even bother to fit a rear-view mirror to the Diablo Jota). The fiercely raked A-pillars might as well be Roman columns, and the windscreen is so low, you’ll struggle to observe traffic lights at anything closer than 20 feet. That said, while it can be tough to acclimatise to all this, the rewards for sticking it out are simply spectacular.

Driving

What is it like to drive?

This is not the Aventador we know and – mostly – love. The outgoing car was a mighty thing, but it didn’t have the liveliest chassis. You were aware it was a heavy car, dominated by its engine, not something that wanted to dance to your tune. The S is a car transformed. I’d stop short of saying it’s outright playful, but the agility, the steering, the weight management, the integration of all the systems… it’s a big, big step forward.

Central to this is the new 4WS system. Everyone is fitting these now, but Lamborghini does seem to have pushed the system further than most. The rear wheel can turn up to three degrees at low speed, giving the sense that the Aventador has a 500mm shorter wheelbase. Rarely do car firms line up old against new on a launch, but they did here, and through a slalom the difference was amazing – the S was far more agile, you could feel both ends helping out, where the old car seemed to be dragging an anchor behind it. At higher speeds the rears turn the same way as the fronts, making the wheelbase seem 700mm longer. Up goes stability and up goes confidence.

On circuit it feels much more alert, too. Now, while the pictures you’re looking at show a lovely dry track, the reality was pouring rain and flooded corners. No matter which way you cut it, or how many wheels you divvy it up between, 730bhp is a lot to cope with in these conditions. Especially when it’s spat at the tarmac through 255/30 ZR20 front tyres and colossal 355/25 ZR21 rears. Due to the rear steering Lambo teamed up with Pirelli to develop a brand new P Zero compound for the car.

Now because it was wet, all the Aventador S did when you turned in, was understeer. You’d hear the tyres grumble and push wide, but although this wasn’t ideal, the important thing was that you could feel what the car was up to and do something about it. The S has a variable steering rack. Normally I hate these, but this set-up didn’t offend me. It’s very direct off-centre, but without feeling nervous because it’s balanced and assisted by the rear steering.

So when the front end slid, I could back off the throttle and the car would tighten its line. It’s surprisingly adjustable and wears its weight lightly (1,575kg is a dry weight – actual kerbweight is probably around the 1,700kg mark).

This behaviour changes depending on driving mode. On track you can ignore Strada (street) because the gearshifts are too slow and the engine not quite alert enough. Sport is spot on for wet circuit driving, sending up to 90 per cent of torque rearwards, while Corsa, which is focused on fast laps, can only direct 80 per cent aft. In Corsa you also have to put up with a fairly savage ride and a completely savage gearchange. New is Ego, which allows you to select your own settings for the steering, suspension and drivetrain. About time too.

The Aventador S retains the sequential manual ISR seven-speed gearbox. Lamborghini claims to have sharpened it up and improved it, but compared to the latest twin clutchers, it’s a dinosaur. It may be lighter and easier to package, but the shifts are either noticeably slow or head-bangingly savage. Of course you can lift-off to smooth them out, and you could argue that this is good character-building stuff. But compare it to an Audi R8 or Ferrari 488 and it feels 20 years old.

The gearchanges punctuate the wild excesses of the engine, spoil its flow. This V12… oh my god. The old adage of buying the engine and getting the rest for free? That’ll do. It’s mesmeric, howling and punching forward, making the car feel like an unstoppable force. You’re not going to notice the extra 40bhp. Lamborghini still claims the same 2.9sec sprint to 62mph, and although it’ll hit 124mph in 8.8secs and 186mph in 24.2secs, in reality that’s no faster than a Ferrari 488 GTB or McLaren 570S (we figured the 488 at 8.5secs to 124mph, the 570S at 8.6secs). But that’s not the point. This V12 doesn’t just generate noise or vibration or acceleration, it has its own life force. The same can be said for Ferrari V12s, too, so the Lambo’s not unique, but god bless them for sticking with it. This is transcendental. The top end as the needles whips up past 6,000rpm and you know there’s still 2,500rpm to enjoy… oh my.

Out on the road, well, it copes. There’s a lot of road noise, the tyres can get distracted by cambers and the like, and on light openings the throttle is snappy, but it manages and the steering doesn’t lose its way. But every Aventador you see trundling around town is missing out. It needs space to perform, and when given it and taking everything together, the Aventador S is a car you now really have fun with – and not just for the way it accelerates.

I’d love to have driven it in the dry. I reckon it would have contained the understeer much better (although the difference in tyre widths, 255 vs 355, is abnormally large) and allowed the engine to really lean on the chassis and show both off to full effect.

Engines, performance and drive

As you’d expect, the Lamborghini Aventador S delivers mind-boggling performance. Use the launch control – rather appropriately called Thrust Mode – and it will reach 0-62mph in just 2.9 seconds, and in the right environment keep accelerating all the way to 217mph. If this is not quite hardcore or edgy enough for you then you could always opt for the Aventador SVJ which is Lamborghini’s most potent and technological car to date. 

The Aventador S brings with it a few other significant changes. First among these is four-wheel steering, which makes turn in far sharper, aids high-speed stability and significantly improves the Aventador’s overall driving experience. Revamped suspension and a new, customisable ‘Ego’ driving model also feature on the S.

But while the Aventador received a host of updates with the S, the single-clutch robotised automatic gearbox still frustrates.

Those after open-air thrills and even greater aural excitement can opt for the Aventador S Roadster. Instead of a conventional folding roof, this features two removable carbon-fibre panels over the driver and passenger.

The Aventador SVJ adds more power, sophisticated active aerodynamics and wild styling. Performance is as electrifying as you’d expect from a Nurburgring record holder, but it’s best exploited on a wide, long racetrack – it’s hard to make the most of the SVJ’s 759bhp, 720Nm of torque and 40 per cent increase of downforce on the public highway.

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