Lamborghini Aventador SVJ review, features, photos,

With the Huracán, Lamborghini moved decisively away from the signature combination of crude and flashy that had previously defined the brand. The Huracán is, depending in configuration, the easiest-to-drive Lambo ever created.

That’s all well and good, but some Lamboistas crave that old-time terrifying Lamborghini experience. And for them, the Aventador SVJ is just what il dottore ordered.

The Aventador SVJ is, of course, the already insane Aventador optimized to ravage racetracks. As such, it offers effectively no compromises. The SVJ is, without a doubt, the most difficult-to-drive supercar I’ve ever gotten behind the wheel of. For example, with a redline at 8,700 rpm, even in theoretically benign Strada mode, getting the seven-speed single-clutch transmission and the V12 engine to stop kicking you in the tush is a tall order.

Tickling that redline and thereby mitigating the more F1-aspects of driving the SVJ is impossible. You could perhaps get there in third gear, but you’d be afraid that the motor would burst through the firewall and kill you, and also you’d be going 1oo mph in a red Italian supercar on public roads and raising a wail that could back off a starving Tyrannosaurus Rex.

To be honest, it usually isn’t the overt supercars, the automotive big boys, that terrify me like this. Rather, it’s the wild little machines that punch miles above their weight. I consider myself fairly accomplished at getting some satisfying real-world supercar performance out of these four-wheeled aristocratic savages. Not so the Aventador SVJ. This is the Big Lambo that shredded the Nürburgring in just over six minutes and 42 seconds, claiming the title of fastest production car to lap the German Nordschleife circuit.

What we have here is a majestic throwback, modified to be a modern-day track weapon, with enough aerodynamic extras to impress a US Navy fighter jock. The Lamborghini SVJ is, however, at base, a simple idea: take a huge amount of engine displacement, add gas and air, and use that alchemy to produce shattering, noisy velocity. What the SVJ treatment does is refine this familiar Lambo quality to be altogether better around corners and into curves.

That’s great, but let’s be real — this Big Lambo is still insane in a big way. In fact, it’s perhaps the most insane Lambo I’ve driven lately. And it’s definitely the most insane Lambo money can buy.