Lamborghini Aventador SVJ 2018 Review — International

Turning up at a racetrack to flog the living daylights out of a 566kW supercar constitutes a magnificent day at the office, but it also triggers a mild degree of a trepidation.

Particularly as we’ve just been informed the newly laid tarmac at the Circuito do Estoril near Lisbon in Portugal offers very little in the way of grip. There’s as yet no rubber laid down on the track, and residual oil from the fresh asphalt has seeped to the surface under the hot sun.

But that was never going to stop us driving the brand-new Lamborghini Aventador SVJ, which stands for Super Veloce Jota, because it's no ordinary supercar.

Super Veloce is Italian for Super Fast, while Jota is Spanish for the letter ‘J’, which is a reference to ‘Appendix J’, the FIA rulebook governing the preparation of road-based race cars. The latter is the first clue to this raging bull’s track credentials.

Priced from $949,640 plus on-road costs Down Under, just 900 Lamborghini Aventador SVJ will be built, in effect waving goodbye to this generation of the Italian supercar-maker's flagship V12.

An additional 63 ‘special editions’ wearing individually numbered plaques will also be offered -- the latter number commemorates the year Lamborghini was born (1963).

But the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ’s big claim to fame comes via a staggering 6:44.97sec lap at the Nurburgring Nordschleife. That time makes it the fastest production car ever around the daunting 20.6km circuit.

Snatching this automotive Holy Grail from Porsche’s cutting-edge 911 GT2 RS was the objective for the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ from the outset. Indeed, Lamborghini R&D boss, Maurizio Reggiani, basically presented it to his team of development engineers like this: “We have to set a new production-car lap record at the Nurburgring Nordschleife. No excuses.”

It’s a bit like an athletics coach telling his sprint protégé to go out there and run faster than Usain Bolt.

Beating the GT2 RS around the 'Ring required every aspect of the Aventador to be put under the microscope to see where performance gains could be achieved – chassis, drivetrain and aero.

Last year’s Aventador S and the 2015 Aventador SV already brought performance-enhancing goodies such as four-wheel-steer, upgraded V12s and sophisticated Magneto Rheological suspension to the table, but setting a new record at the Nordschleife would require more pace. A lot more…

The boffins started with the Aventador SVJ’s mighty, free-spinning 6.5-litre V12, which was reworked for better breathing via titanium intake valves, redesigned cylinder-heads and reshaped intake runners. It also scored a new lightweight exhaust system with two large pipes exiting hallway up the rear fascia to mimic extreme motorcycles.

Apart from reducing back-pressure, the other payoff with the new exhaust is a sonic signature that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. It’s bloodcurdlingly lovely.

End result? Outputs of 566kW of power at 8500rpm and 720Nm of torque at 6750rpm (increases of 22kW and 30Nm over the Aventador S), but the real payoff is in a fatter and flatter torque curve that enables the SVJ to punch out of corners with far greater urgency. A lightened flywheel reduces inertia so the V12 spins up faster than before too.

The Aventador SVJ was also equipped with 50 per cent stiffer anti-roll bars than the already hard-core Aventador SV, and overall damping stiffness was bumped up by 15 per cent.

The Lambo SVJ’s bespoke lightweight rims (20-inch at the front, 21s at the rear) were shod with specially developed Pirelli P Zero Corsa tyres. An extra spend gets you the track-focused Trofeo R boots (as used by the record-breaker), which feature Kevlar construction to withstand the huge loads placed by a sustained thrashing on a long, fast, high-downforce circuit such as the Nordschleife.

And it’s downforce where the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ makes even further gains, thanks to a massive fixed rear wing, aggressive two-plane splitter, air-channelling vents in the top of the nose and winglets on the front corners that smooth the airflow down the flanks and channel more air to the radiator intakes. All these tweaks add up to an extra 40 per cent of downforce compared to the be-winged Aventador SV.

But the real trick bit is Version 2.0 of the clever ALA ('Aerodinamica Lamborghini Attiva') active aero wizardry that enabled the Huracan Performante to claim ’Ring king status last year.

The principle is exactly the same this time around. Via electric motors, ducts at the front and rear of the car are opened or closed, the purpose of which is to ‘stall’ (ie: cancel out the downforce of) the front splitter and rear wing.

So, on the straights the SVJ adopts a speed-enhancing low-drag set-up, but the instant you hit the brakes, it reverts to high-downforce mode to stabilise the car.

The piece de resistance is ‘aero vectoring’, which stalls the outside half of the rear wing when cornering. Meanwhile, maximum downforce is applied to inner half, helping the car turn into the bend. It’s the same principle as torque vectoring, just using airflow rather than braking the inside wheels.

Out in the real world, the performance is gobsmacking. Indeed, the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ is a wonderfully playful and entertaining brute that devours straights and virtually defies physics with its ability to carry enormous cornering speeds -- even on a super-slippery Circuito do Estoril.

The SVJ’s core hardware may be largely the same as the initial Aventador that launched in 2011, but the evolution it has undergone makes it feel like a generational leap. And then some.

Where the original Aventador was a bone-jarringly hostile proposition with a clunky, spine-walloping transmission, the SVJ feels comparatively civilised, tactile and non-threatening – yet it is both decisively faster and more engaging.

The Magneto Rheological adaptive dampers have elevated ride quality to the extent it copes with even lumpy tarmac without you needing a subsequent session with a chiropractor.

Meanwhile, a succession of tweaks and software updates to the ISR (Independent Shifting Rod) single-clutch, sequential gearbox have evolved it to the point where it’s satisfyingly punchy and urgent when you’re going flat out, and less neck-jerking than it used to be at pottering speeds.

Meantime, the V12 is an undisputed hall-of-famer. Which other engine offers so much grunt down low, yet sings its way to 8700rpm with such joyful ease? Perhaps only the 6.5-litre V12 in the Ferrari 812 Superfast is in the same league.

The addition of the free-flow exhaust to the Aventador SVJ has made it an even more sonorous engine (especially in Corsa mode). With a banshee-like wail in the upper half of its rev band and flame-spitting visual drama, it’s Pavarotti-esque in its vocal range.

What really separates the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ from past editions, however, is the confidence with which you can work up to its (or, more likely, your own) limits.

Even with that big lump of a V12 at the back, the car has wonderful balance, and there’s a newfound adjustability that the car lacked in the past.

Dive into a corner too hot? No problem; a little lift of the throttle or light dab on the brakes instantly gets the nose tucked in. It’s possible even for moderately skilled drivers to tap into the car’s driftability (in Sport mode) without having to deactivate the safety net of the stability control.

In ‘Sport’ mode the chassis electronics allow scope for a decent dose of sideways hooliganism, and the experience never feels as though it’s going to end in tears.

This is a far cry from past V12 Lamborghinis. The addition of rear-steer last year made the Aventador a much nimbler car than before, having dialled out almost any trace of turn-in understeer. Now, the steering is surgically precise and there’s ample feedback about front-end grip relayed to your fingertips, so you feel intimately connected.

The massive carbon-ceramic stoppers are progressive and offer good pedal feel, inspiring confidence to stand on them as late as possible -- even at the end of Estoril’s main straight with the speedo reading in excess of 280km/h.

The car squirms noticeably under full retardation, but there’s never any concern that the V12-laden rear-end will attempt to overtake the rest of the car.

That doesn’t mean the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ is flawless. The ISR gearbox might be hugely improved, but it’s still not a patch on the latest dual-clutch gearboxes offered in its Ferrari/Porsche/McLaren rivals. The ISR remains clunky and archaic by comparison.

And the Aventador’s cabin is still compromised in the extreme. Anyone over 1.8m tall will find their headroom restricted. And the fixed-back seats in the SVJ are fine for a brief thrash around a racetrack, but they’d be backache material after a few hours on the road.

And if rear and lateral visibility was hardly good in the original Aventador, the SVJ’s massive wing now pretty much nullifies whatever view existed out back.

On the plus side, Lamborghini’s engineers have extracted every last iota of dynamic potential out of the Aventador for the SVJ. It’s a fitting swansong, sending the model off with panache before an all-new replacement arrives in two years or so.

The Aventador SVJ could be the last hairy-chested, old-school Lambo. Reggiani privately hinted the next-gen flagship will get a dual-clutch gearbox but will retain the brand’s talisman naturally-aspirated V12 – albeit supplemented by electric infrastructure.

So its successor will doubtless be even faster, substantially greener and more refined. In the meantime, this low-volume V12 is destined to go down as one of the Raging Bull's greatest.

How much does the 2019 Lamborghini Aventador SVJ cost?
Price: From $949,640 (plus on-road costs)
On sale: Q2 2019
Engine: 6.5-litre quad-cam V12
Output: 566kW/720Nm
Transmission: Seven-speed sequential auto, all-wheel drive
Fuel: 19.6L/100km
CO2: 452g/km
Safety rating: Not tested