Lamborghini Revuelto 2023 Review – International

Without ticking any options boxes, the 2023 Lamborghini Revuelto lists at $987,000 plus on-road costs in Australia and, if you think they’re dreaming, Lamborghini Australia’s order books are full for the next two years, at least.

First Australian deliveries are expected to show up in the first quarter of next year, and every Revuelto is likely to roll out of showrooms at well over $1 million because not a single Lamborghini sold in Australia in the past three years has been a ‘base’ model spec.

There are going to be some scratched heads when customers pay extra for the larger wheels and tyres on the 2023 Lamborghini Revuelto and find it has less grip and a worse ride.

That’s because the hypercar has been designed and engineered to operate on its standard Bridgestone Potenza Sport tyres, while the larger versions have smaller sidewalls that are much stiffer to deliver the run-flat capacity.

That leaves it with standard 265/35 ZR20 rubber up front and 345/30 ZR21s at the rear (our recommended spec), but there are bigger wheels for the optional 265/30 ZR21 front and 355/25Z R22 rubber, so plenty of people will ask for it. There is also a run-flat option for the standard wheel size.

You’ll need to hire your decorator to sort out a spec, though, because there are 400 water-based colours to choose from and dozens of interior trim colours.

Inside, it’s a big step forward, with a 12.3-inch instrument screen for the driver and a 9.1-inch screen for the passenger, in a strip in the dashboard, and there’s a swipe option so both the driver and passenger can move functions from the 8.4-inch vertical central screen to their own.

The 2023 Lamborghini Revuelto hypercar is safer than any Lamborghini hypercar before it, with a couple of very interesting additions to its safety package.

The first is that the entire front-end forward of the carbon-fibre tub, including its crush cones in the nose, are also made from carbon-fibre.

Its predecessor, the Lamborghini Aventador, used an aluminium subframe to do that job; the Revuelto front-end saves 20 per cent in weight while doubling the crush strength at the front.

The carbon-fibre side-impact protection built into the side of the tub has migrated to the door, so it’s also easier to get in and out of.

There are also front and side airbags on both sides of the car, and it benefits from new sensor tech to deliver a driver assistance package that includes rear cross traffic alert, lane departure warning, a lane change warning that covers the blind spots and adaptive cruise control.

It has yet to be assessed by NCAP, and is not expected to be crash-tested given its hypercar status.

Riding on a full forged carbon-fibre tub, with a carbon-fibre front crash structure, the 2024 Lamborghini Revuelto could, theoretically, have been considerably lighter than the Aventador. But it’s not.

That’s largely because the Aventador used a unique, ultra-light (and ultra-clunky) gearbox instead of the eight-speed dual-clutch in the Revuelto, but also because the newer car sprouted three electric motors and the battery that feeds them.

At 40,000Nm per degree, the Revuelto’s body is 25 per cent stiffer than the older car, despite the tub actually weighing considerably less. The whole vehicle weighs 1772kg, and 56 per cent of that sits on the rear axle.

It also ditches the in-board, pushrod front suspension for more conventional double wishbones at each corner, propped up with Magneride damping that gives it more comfort, and integrates a lift feature.

The trick with the 2023 Lamborghini Revuelto is not that it’s powered by a combination of a 6.5-litre V12 engine and three electric motors, but when and how and why Lamborghini deploys all of this technology.

There’s straight-line performance, obviously, because tacking 110kW x 3 onto the 757kW from the naturally aspirated V12 will always help, and it gives the car all-wheel drive and the ability to almost infinitely vary the torque from wheel to wheel.

The V12 delivers 725Nm of torque, and its power peak doesn’t hit until an astonishing 9250rpm.

While the front e-motors have 110kW and 350Nm each, the rear has the same power peak but only 150Nm of torque. It can’t, obviously, use all of them at peak output at the same time, because the battery deploys a maximum of 140kW at a time.

It’s designed to never flatten its lithium-ion battery, even deploying the rear motor as a traction control system whenever the driver threatens to light up the rear tyres, and using that energy to charge the battery, even at full throttle.

In 16 laps of the Vallelunga circuit, we never drained the battery completely.

It also uses the front axial-flux motors to gain grip and keep the car in line via both predictive and reactive programs – and it works, beautifully.

The front motors work directly on one wheel each, while it puts the combined efforts of the V12 and the rear e-motor through an eight-speed dual-clutch transmission.

Make no mistake, the 2023 Lamborghini Revuelto is not a plug-in hybrid in the fuel economy sense, though it’s 35 per cent better than the Aventador.

While it doesn’t have its official WLTP figure yet, Lamborghini has calculated a combined figure of 12.6L/100km and CO2 emissions of 309g/km.

There have been V12s as long as there have been Lamborghinis, and with the 2023 Lamborghini Revuelto, the Italian supercar marque has found a way to use electric power to make the V12 even better.

Now freed from the drudgery of low-end torque, the V12 has been re-engineered to rev high and hard, and you’d think that 9250rpm scream might be the overwhelming memory of the Revuelto at a racetrack. It’s not.

It’s pretty unforgettable, but the prevailing impression is this: from the Countach through the Diablo, the Murcielago and the Aventador, all the V12s have kept people away from their ultimate handling limits by a mix of awe, intimidation, fear and heavy controls.

The Revuelto is not like that. At all. It’s absurdly fast and loud, but it’s also as consistent and chuckable as a Mazda MX-5, and just about as intimidating.

It takes just two or three corners to realise, with utter glee, that this is the first access-all-areas Lamborghini hypercar.

It’s so much quicker and easier to drive that it’s 40km/h quicker into the kink at Vallelunga than the Aventador.

The grip is absurd, and you can feel the three electric motors working to save you if you’ve come in too hot and turned anyway.

The front-end nibbles away almost invisibly to keep you on the line you want, and it can be adjusted on the throttle, with brilliant engine response, or on the steering or on the brakes and the balance is so perfect that it just does what you ask it to.

This is very much a first for Lamborghini.

And the new gearbox, fearfully complex and almost 40kg heavier than the Aventador’s ISR gearbox, is also tame, and shifts seamlessly in comfort mode and snaps through in sports mode.

It’s a car that never, ever feels like it will bite, and does, actually, feel as though it could be lived with every day.

The first impression of the interior of the 2023 Lamborghini Revuelto is space. There is a lot of it, and the extra 80mm of wheelbase has been put to good use.

Besides swallowing two roller bags up front (along with the AC socket), it can now carry a golf bag or a couple of sports bags behind the seats, and there is 84mm more legroom as well as 26mm more headroom.

There’s a cup holder on the passenger side of the dash and a tray to store phones (with two USB-C sockets) as well.

The steering wheel is comfortable, but too busy, featuring four rotary knobs for selecting the driving modes, lifting the nose and raising and lowering the wing, as well as cranking up launch control.

It’s spacious, and most of the time the comfort seats will do the job nicely, but it now boasts so much lateral grip that even infrequent enthusiastic driving demands the grippier sports seats.

Well, obviously, if you can afford a 2023 Lamborghini Revuelto, you should buy a Lamborghini Revuelto, and not least because it will be the last V12-powered car they make.

There was a concern that increasing the accessibility of the V12 Lamborghini’s handling would emasculate it by removing its ingrained fear factor. And it hasn’t. It’s liberated it.

It’s now a car to be enjoyed. Respected, but enjoyed, and enjoyed time and time again, with race-car speed but Labrador levels of handling friendliness.

It’s practical, the gearbox is smooth, the frighteningly complex blend of electrical and mechanical gubbins underneath works seamlessly and it’s by far the best Lamborghini we’ve ever driven.

In fact, it’s probably the best supercar out there today.

2023 Lamborghini Revuelto at a glance:
Price: $987,000 (plus on-road costs)
Available: First quarter 2024
Powertrain: 6.5-litre V12 petrol-electric
Output: 607kW/725Nm
Electric power: Two front axial-flux e-motors (110kW/350Nm each), one rear e-motor (110kW/150Nm)
Combined output: 757kW
Transmission: Eight-speed dual-clutch automatic
Battery: 3.8kWh lithium-ion
Range: 12km (WLTP)
Fuel: 12.6L/100km (WLTP)
CO2: 309g/km (WLTP)
Safety rating: Not tested