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Forbes
Forbes
Lifestyle
Mark Ewing, Contributor

A $522,000 740 HP Lamborghini Aventador S For A Long, Long Weekend: The Best Lamborghini Ever

Aventador S proved unwavering and full of heart, its performance easy to exploit on a whim.

From 8:30 AM Friday till late Monday, I pounded this bright blue 740-horsepower Lamborghini Aventador S around Southern California, its V12 and gearbox, logic-driven cockpit electronics, and in particular its impeccable build quality ending forever the decades-long trope about finicky Lamborghinis. It was as bulletproof as the Huracán that claimed a Daytona 24-Hour class victory the same weekend.

Bodywork is carbon-fiber, aluminium, and SMC. Chassis is carbon-fiber tub and alloy rails front and rear.

Crazy as it might sound, Aventador S is fully up to the task of romantic weekend trips to our Santa Barbara wine country, or twice-daily blasts to lunch and dinner engagements. Under all circumstances, Aventador S proved unwavering and full of heart, its performance easy to exploit on a whim.

Quilted leather seats highly supportive. Leather-trimmed dash. Audi-derived electronics have expected layers of menus and sub-menus so it’s to set up AC and audio before a trip, or have a friendly copilot.

No matter that steeply raked Lamborghini windshield and knock-on effect of radically low roof rails, the car demands limited compromise of median-height drivers. At six three, I was the only person who had to Lambo Limbo into the car, yet I executed a classic Steve McQueen entry a few times when my stiff, old neck cooperated. Passengers performed a deep knee bend beside the car before swinging hips over the nearly foot-wide sill, then ducked head down while falling backward into the quilted leather bucket. Seatback aggressively tilted, I viewed the world through the top third of the windshield; everyone else looked through the center portion of the screen, a major accomplishment in human factors for a car so dramatically styled.

The 6.5-liter V12 presented like jewelry, crackle-finish paint, gorgeous carbon-fiber X-brace. Note four massive air inlets feeding the air boxes. This engine gulps huge quantities of air and fuel. In lower right, note oil filler cap, which leads to a big alloy dry sump. Engine and sump hold more than 3 gallons of oil.

In SPORT setting, the 4-wheel drive system delivers up to 90 percent of torque to the rear wheels, yet Aventador S wastes little energy spinning tires at launch. Full-throttle acceleration smears the landscape in your peripheral vision, all the while singing Pavarotti Tenor between 4000 and 8500 rpm. Yes, you read that correctly: at 6.5 liters, nearly 400 cubic inches, this V12 revs effortlessly to 8500 rpm.

Carbon-ceramic brakes of staggering proportions, necessary for a car of this weight and speed potential. 15.75 in. front, 14.96 in. rear. Car stands just under 45 inches tall.

Yet it’s not just sprints starting from low speeds that compress and jostle organs located in the torso. Aventador S accelerates in shocking fashion coming out of a big bowled corner, or when it’s time to pass on the highway. The engine simply doesn’t run out of steam, and gear ratios are well chosen. After taking the whip on the highway, gulping gallons of fossil fuel and cubic yards of air, engine idle settles to 900 rpm, like an Audi A5 that’s just completed the drive home from the yoga studio. The 21st Century may bring the supposed freedom of autonomous cars, but it has also brought the materials, low-volume production techniques and electronics to make a car as flat-out crazy as Aventador S into damn near a daily driver.

Steering has minimal assist. Power flowing to front wheels gives a reassuring sensation when the hammer is down, full throttle.

The first exotic to crunch the newly laid gravel drive that leads to our garden, Aventador S performed tight, efficient J-turns thanks to its newly added rear-wheel steer function. Add the rear camera that projects onto the main gauge pod’s flat screen and the PARKING plan view presentation in the center console screen provided by an array of sensors and you will never, ever be that guy in the wild car who backs into a stanchion or big planter or another car under the port-cochère of a fine hotel. When driving something this outrageous, suffering the slings and arrows of the jealous is not a good time. In low-speed maneuvers, you will sense the massive front tires struggling with sharp turning angles, but Aventador S can be placed on a dime without two attendants standing alongside indicating how close you are to the curb.

Rear tires measure 355/25ZR-21. New head of Lamborghini Centro Stile, Mitja Borkert, wanted to quote the rear wheel arch of Marcello Gandini’s Countach. A sliver of bodywork was cut away, leaving a black plastic vent and insert that at a few paces disappears. Trompe l’œil.

Preferred calibration setting in the new EGO mode (you can select individual settings for steering, powertrain and suspension) was SPORT for steering and powertrain, and the softish STRADA setting for suspension. SPORT suspension calibration was best for smooth mountain two-lanes. For the choppy highways of Los Angeles, frankly, STRADA could be several ticks plusher, or Lamborghini could offer a pushbutton that for a brief period of time softens the damping when really rough roads are encountered. The front-end lift is mandatory, lifting the carbon-fiber front chin spoiler several inches in mere seconds, affording smooth entry to steep driveways like mine.

Gauges set for CORSA. Black box behind dash sourced from technology partner Audi.

Aventador’s 7-speed is not a dual-clutch German-style gearbox with virtually instantaneous gear changes. It’s a single clutch that pop-pops at the back, robotic arms shifting the cogs. Like manually shifting an old Lamborghini Diablo—I was on the press launch of that car and remember heaving the shifter—there is a slight pause between gears.

Magneto-rheological shocks lay horizontally, connecting to hubs with pushrods—racing tech that helps packaging.

Any vehicle this extreme will have eccentricities. For low-speed trawling through either my beloved beach neighborhood, or equally beloved Old Town Pasadena, it’s best to engage automatic gearbox mode in maneuvers below 10 mph to ensure smooth, easy operation. Simply put, this is a car meant to be driven with speed and style and a foot deep in the throttle; it is far happier in triple digits than taxiing at 5 mph. In parking garages or when making a splashy entrance, switch to automatic and the whole drivetrain settles down, happy to toddle along.

Trunk swallows two brief cases plus slim overnight bags. Shelf behind the seats holds jackets. Take a thick wallet to buy what you need at the Belmond Encanto Santa Barbara. Have your favorite winery ship a case—there’s no room for hauling wine.

Next, anyone standing much taller than my six foot three should consider commissioning a custom driver’s chair with Lamborghini’s ad personam atelier to gain a little head and leg room. I found a seating position comfortable for a long highway run (after two hours in the saddle, refueling and a leg stretch are advised), but I am clearly at outer limits for height.

From the rear, Aventador S looks like a 22nd Century Miura Interstellar Space Pod. Every approach to the car is as good as the first meeting.

Aventador S is about 85 percent Italian and 15 percent German. Every touch surface, every sound, every form of contact is screaming, yowling, erotically Italian yet with none of the heartaches and pain characteristic of Lamborghini before VW Group arrived in Sant’Agata. German technology means well sorted black boxes powering the electronic interface and monitoring the engine, a steering column with a wide range of adjustment, heated seats that work perfectly, a sensor array to aid parking, black boxes that make the engine flawless from idle to redline, and a rear-wheel steering motor sourced from the other premium brands within the VW Group, all hidden under the surface where no one cares. Aventador S is almost as easy to live with as baby brother Huracán, which is almost as easy to live with as an Audi TT.

Aventador and Huracán are  design masterworks of Filippo Perini, who guided Lamborghini Centro Stile before moving to the top spot at Italdesign. Mitja Borkert has respectfully evolved Perini’s Aventador. Borkert’s vision for Lamborghini is seen in Terzo Millennio EV concept developed with input from MIT.

Chief engineer Maurizio Reggiani and his new partners in crime, design boss Mitja Borkert and CEO Stefano Domenicali, enjoy tremendous latitude in engineering and design and…spirituality. By keeping hands off while offering access to the corporate parts bin, VW has allowed the boys of Sant’Agata to fulfill Ferruccio Lamborghini’s vision of a tough, fast, reliable and sexy Super GT with just enough practicality for a long weekend in Rimini or Santa Barbara, or a 2 AM blast to Vegas. Aventador S is the most spectacular Lamborghini ever conceived.

Rear wing rises at speed. The upright rear window allows a surprisingly good view to the rear. Side mirrors offer a broad swath view of real estate to the rear, too.
Steering wheel blocks view of light switches on left-side dash. With familiarity, they’re operated by touch.
Aventador.
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