What it’s like to drive Lamborghini’s iconic super sportscars today

The 1966 Miura was the very first mid-engine production sportscar design that all supercar manufacturers have since adopted for their most extreme machines. The Miura had an innovative transverse-mounted V12 engine rather than the more common longitudinal layout, making it more compact and efficient.

Compared to the 400GT, the Miura required slightly more effort to drive but I still found it surprisingly friendly to pilot around the hills surrounding the Lamborghini factory. By placing the engine behind the driver the balance of the car changes favourably in terms of performance but to the detriment of practicality as it can barely carry any luggage at all.

Power at this point reaches 350 hp for the standard Miura 4.0-litre V12 and eventually moves up to 385 hp in the stunning yellow Miura SV (SuperVeloce) that I was driving. Handling was more precise and it did not seem to penalise ride comfort at all. The steering with the weight of the engine transferred to the back felt lighter than the 400GT. This was also a result of not requiring super-wide tyres to cope with the performance potential. The lovely sound of the V12 engines was characterised by the carburettors used in the early days before fuel injection. It might seem crude to us now, but 50 years ago, this was cutting-edge stuff.

The Lamborghini Miura was featured in the opening sequence of the 1969 film, The Italian Job, elevating it to the most desirable of Lamborghini’s historical models, commanding a price just north of US$4 million at a recent auction. While the Miura is the most beautiful, the Lamborghini Countach was the pin-up car for many teenagers in the late 1970s. The wild styling captured the imagination of the youth of that era.

The Countach LP400 arrived in 1974 with a 379 hp 4.0-litre V12 developed from that of the Miura but this time the engine was mounted longitudinally in the middle following the layout of racing cars. The Countach had a long production run from 1974 to 1990. By 1988, its engine grew in size and power, finally reaching 5.2-litres in displacement with an impressive 455 hp. This engine was fitted to the final Countach with the name, 25th Anniversary, the very car that I was next scheduled to drive. Only 657 examples were made and current prices hover around the US$500,000 mark.

The Countach LP500 was the very first Lamborghini I had the good fortune to test drive back in the mid-‘80s. If I recall correctly, it was quite the ordeal in our tropical climate when there was no air-conditioning and the side window, when wound down, was barely sufficient to put one’s hand out to pay for parking charges. Fortunately, in Italy, it was a perfect 15 degrees Celsius spring day, so air-conditioning was not a concern in the 25th Anniversary Countach.

It is an old-school supercar in every sense, being without power steering and a manual transmission. But why was it so much harder to drive than the Miura and 400GT before this? Thanks to the onward march of performance, with engine power reaching 455 hp, Lamborghini made fatter tyres, beefier transmission and a heavier clutch necessary to cope with the power. It may not have been obvious back then, but with today’s perspective, it could be said that power steering is not a luxury convenience but a performance-enhancing device.

The Countach had a huge performance potential with 455 hp, but a limiting factor was just how quickly one can turn the steering wheel and with such a hefty unassisted steering, onward speed is severely hampered by how fast one can steer. The heavy clutch also factors into just how difficult it is to manage this supercar’s controls.

Lamborghini must have realised this and the next supercar I drove, the Diablo VT 6.0 SE, came with power-assisted steering. While heavy by today’s standards, the power assistance is a welcome addition, making the Diablo one of the nicest of Lamborghini’s old-school supercars to pilot quickly. One still has to deal with shifting a manual transmission, but it is part of the lovely engagement one gets with these classic supercars.

The V12 engine started life in the 1990 Diablo as a 5.7-litre engine producing 492 hp. By the end of its life cycle in 2001, the engine gained fuel injection and offered up to 583 hp from a 6.0-litre V12. With so much power, Lamborghini decided that it should get all-wheel drive to safely distribute all that power through all four tyres rather than the traditional rear-driven pair. Lamborghini has kept this technology to this day.

In 2001, the Lamborghini Murciélago replaced the Diablo. This was the first time the design was done in-house and was not designed by Marcelo Gandini from the design company, Bertone, who had designed all the previous V12 Lamborghinis. The Murciélago was also the first model developed under the aegis of their current German owner, Audi, and remained in production until 2010.

Audi has long championed their Quattro all-wheel drive systems and so they found the AWD Lamborghini super sportscar a good fit. The version I drove was one of the last of the line called the Murciélago Versace, a collaboration with the famous fashion house of Gianni Versace. It was only available in white or black and only twenty were ever made worldwide.

Power now reached 640 hp and the V12’s displacement was 6.5-litres. This was a proper analogue supercar that started in 2001 with a new six-speed manual gearbox but by 2006 Lamborghini introduced their first automated manual transmission called E-Gear. It was heralded as a great step forward back then but was not quite the breakthrough the world was waiting for. Still, it was driveable and delivered (then) state-of-the-art performance.

In 2011, Lamborghini unleashed their most extreme V12 super sportscar called the Aventador which, like all their cars, takes its name from a famous fighting bull. The Aventador was the first to use mass-production carbon-fibre monocoque construction to lower weight and improve chassis strength.

The 6.5-litre V12 engine now brushes against the 700 hp mark, hence its name, Aventador LP 700-4, denoting an all-wheel drive. This became one of the most popular Lamborghinis with 11,465 units being sold worldwide. At its mid-life, it had reached 740 hp and by the end of production, power reached 780 hp in the Aventador Ultimae. This was to be my final ride of the day.

This limited edition Aventador Ultimae can reach 100 km/h in a vision-distorting 2.84 seconds and reach a 356 km/h top speed. While it is an extreme supercar, it is remarkably wieldy around town, though it is more at home on the open roads. The controversial transmission was a more developed version of the automated transmission but in the ensuing decade the double clutch transmission became the gold standard for supercars which the Aventador needed.

This brings us to the next V12 Lamborghini supercar, the Revuelto. The recently revealed Revuelto will still have a naturally aspirated V12 engine but now mated in a hybrid manner to a high-performance electric drivetrain. The Revuelto will now offer over a thousand horsepower—1,015 hp to be precise—and will finally get an eight-speed dual-clutch transmission. Lamborghini claims a 0-100 km/h time of 2.5 seconds and will reach over 350 km/h. Production will begin in the last quarter of 2023. Until then, take a closer look at the new model below.

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