GENEVA MOTOR SHOW: Lamborghini Aventador LP750-4 Superveloce

Lamborghini wowed this very show four years ago with its production Aventador and now it’s back, with the big V12 coupe angrier than ever.

While others were busily working on concept cars and electric cars and hybrid cars, Lamborghini was busy eking every last scrap of performance from its flagship to create the Aventador LP 750-4 Superveloce (SV).

The fastest production Lamborghini in history, the ultimate Aventador has had 50kg trimmed from its scale figure and added more power – though not as much as had been speculated.

Its monster 6.5-litre naturally-aspirated V12 now delivers 552kW of power and 690Nm of torque, all furiously pushing a body that now weighs just 1525kg.

That’s not much more than the incoming Audi R8 V10 Plus, but the power to weight ratio has been slashed to 2.03kg/horsepower.

It’s enough to fire the Aventador LP 750-4 Superveloce to 100km/h in 2.8 seconds, or from zero to 200km/h in just 8.6 seconds or from zero to 300km/h in 24 seconds neat.

That zero to 200km/h figure is just a second shy of the Bugatti Veyron’s sprint, and the Volkswagen family’s French supercar had four turbo chargers to call on…

Lamborghini is refusing to give a top speed figure, instead saying the car will reach beyond 350km/h, even with its huge, fixed carbon-fibre rear wing in place.

“The new Aventador Superveloce continues the Lamborghini tradition of SV models,” Lamborghini President and CEO, Stephan Winkelmann, said.

“The original Aventador was presented four years ago and the Superveloce pays homage to its passionate owners, whose enthusiasm has resulted in the biggest commercial success ever of a Lamborghini V12 super sports car.

“In the Superveloce, Lamborghini’s expertise in lightweight engineering is clearly evident.

“With technical features which, combined with design, quality standards and craftsmanship, the Superveloce results in the most exclusive, pure and emotional production model in the history of our brand,” he said.

Lamborghini hasn’t gone full radical on the Aventador LP 750-4 Superveloce, though, and has stuck with the 6498cc, 60-degree V12’s indirect fuel-injection system. Lamborghini’s engineering team insists the family dual injection system, which incorporates direct and indirect fuel-injection, isn’t worth the engineering effort on the biggest atmo engine in the Volkswagen Group.

Instead, it has relied on tweaks to the variable valve timing and the variable intake system, along with an all-new, lightweight exhaust system to generate the extra power at its 8400rpm peak. The engine now revs out to 8500rpm, though the torque peak arrives at an earlier 5500rpm.

The new exhaust system, which can be seen as four dark pipes exiting the centre of the Aventador LP 750-4 Superveloce’s tail, is also claimed to improve the engine’s responsiveness thanks to its reduced back pressure.

The car’s handling envelope should benefit from the biggest technical steps on the Aventador LP 750-4 Superveloce, though.

The first of those, the Magneto Rheological Suspension (magnetic damping) was pre-engineered into the Aventador four years ago and was scheduled to arrive in a two-thirds cycle upgrade. Expect it to trickle into the mainline Aventador in a year or two.

The new damping system compliments the Aventador’s radical race-style pushrod suspension system, with each wheel individually damped in cornering via changes in electric current through the magnetized damping fluid. Lamborghini claims this results in a flatter cornering stance and faster responses, as well as countering the Aventador’s tendency to dive under brakes.

The second big step is the addition of electromechanical steering (dubbed Lamborghini Dynamic Steering) that debuted on the Huracan.

The system changes the steering ratio depending on the road speed or it can adjust to suit the driving mode (in the Aventador LP 750-4 Superveloce’s case, that’s the same Strada, Sport or Corsa modes as the standard car).

To make it even sharper, Lamborghini has decreased the unsprung mass of the Aventador LP 750-4 Superveloce by giving it lightweight forged alloy rims.

The 20-inch front rims are wrapped in Pirelli P Zero Corsa 255/35 ZR20 rubber, while the rears use 355/25 ZR21 tyres to combat the rear-biased (43:57) weight distribution.

Carbon-ceramic brakes are standard, with 400mm x 38mm units and six-piston callipers up front and 380mm x 38mm units at the back, clamped by four-piston callipers. Lamborghini claims it will stop from 100km/h in just 30 metres.

The SV retains its all-wheel drive system, which shuffles the drive between the axles with the Haldex 4 system that has been superseded in the Huracan, yet it still regarded as enough for Aventador LP 750-4 Superveloce duties.

The rear diff has a mechanical locking system, while the front differential has an electronic lock, governed by the car’s skid-control system.

While the Huracan uses a dual-clutch transmission, the Aventador LP 750-4 Superveloce uses the unique ISR transmission to move between its seven gears. Criticised for its brutality in the fastest Corsa mode, it is still the fastest auto-shifting manual gearbox on the market, though that is a fast-shrinking competition.

A lot of the car’s 50kg weight reduction has come from stripping out its interior to reveal its carbon-fibre tub, which is mostly obscured in the standard Aventador.

There are also new carbon-fibre shells for the seats, carbon-fibre inner door panels and it’s almost as notable for what’s missing. Lamborghini has stripped it of its infotainment system, its carpets and its swathes of noise insulation (all of which it will put back if you ask nicely, and will even do it for free).

It will be the first car to use Lamborghini’s Carbon Skin material, which is a flexible woven carbon-fibre material the brand first trialed in very expensive computer bags for its board members. It is extremely light and will be used in the Aventador LP 750-4 Superveloce’s inner roof and parts of the cockpit.

There’s a new instrument cluster, with an entirely new TFT screen dominated by the colour yellow, while an rpm indicator and shift light is bright blue.

Other tweaks include new aluminium door panels and rear quarter panels done in SMC superlight composite.

The aerodynamic fiddles are obvious, too, with two front splitters (one in black carbon-fibre and the other one painted) giving the Aventador a 170 per cent rise in downforce for no additional drag.

The nose also includes larger brake inlets, too, while the Aventador’s movable engine air-inlet ducts have given way to fixed carbon-fibre versions.

The rear wing is new and can be manually fixed into any of three available positions, depending on the driver’s preference in the car’s aerodynamic tuning. Lamborghini claims the rear wing’s range can deliver a 15 per cent change in the car’s aero balance.

The car will be on sale in Europe towards the end of May at €327,190, before tax.

And if you take issue with its combined NEDC consumption number of 16L/100km or its 370g/km of CO2/km, Lamborghini is perhaps not the brand for you.