Lamborghini Aventador (2011)

To get this level of performance, the engineers at the Lamborghini headquarters in Sant'Agat Bolognese, near Modena in northern Italy, wanted more power, a better gearshift, less weight and more precise suspension than that of the Murcielago, which has a tubular steel frame, designed many years ago, and conventional wishbone suspension.

The new car weighs 200 lb (90 kg) less than the Murcielago, which is not that much considering that there is a huge difference in the technology of the two cars. Even so, thanks to the more powerful engine, the new car has a much better power-to-weight ratio of 410 bhp per tonne, or 396 bhp/tonne with a driver on board. This compares with 450 and 425 bhp/tonne respectively for the McLaren MP4-12C, which has a similar body/chassis construction.

Sleeker, lower, but a true Lamborghini

What about the styling? The Aventador is 8 inches (200 mm) longer than the Murcielago, which makes it look sleeker and lower, but with that distinct Lamborghini razor-edge style. The nose is longer than on the Gallardo, but the tail is short.

At the front, there are the twin Lamborghini air intakes, and a low wide air intake above the front apron. The headlamps match the shape of the five-sided grilles. The body is a classic mid-engine coupe shape, with low, sloping front end, and long, fastback to house the big V-12.

The sides have sharp upward sloping lines which define the top edge of the rear air intakes, while there are tiny air outlets low down behind the front wheels. A large, shallow side window has the upper air intakes behind. As before, these have flaps which open when maximum cooling is required.

The rear end is also sculptured to show the distinctive Lamborghini line, and includes a wing that can be raised to 4 degrees or 11 degrees, according to requirements.

Completely new engine

Instead of modifying the existing V-12 engine, Lamborghini has designed a completely new 60-deg 6.45 liter V-12 designed form the outset with dry sump lubrication to reduce pumping losses and reduce engine height so the engine can be mounted lower in the car.

It is a conventional engine with a short stroke to allow high revs, but has an open-deck aluminum block with steel liners. Most high-performance engines have closed deck top ends, as this gives greater stiffness. To reduce pumping losses by 50 per cent compared with the old engine, there are no less than eight scavenge pumps in the crankcase to suck up the oil that falls from the crankshaft, cylinders and heads.

There is variable valve timing, under electronic control, and an intake manifold with multi-stage variable length inlet tracts to give a good spread of torque at all speeds. Maximum power of the new engine is 700 bhp (515kW) at 8,250 rpm, making this a real screamer despite its size, producing peak power at a speed 750 rpm higher than in the smaller Murcielago V-12. Maximum torque is 509 lb ft (690Nm) at 5,500 rpm.

Although the engine does not have the wide range of torque you get with a modern turbo engine, there will be plenty of torque at low speed just because this is a big engine. It will follow the Murcielago in this respect, which can go very fast just in the 3,000-5,000 rpm range.

On the other hand, though the engine is much bigger than would be the case with a 700 bhp turbo engine. The complete engine weighs 517 lb (235 kg).

Instead of opting for a twin-clutch automated box, Lamborghini has gone for a completely new design of a manual box, and automated the shifts. Normally, in a manual box, the gear sets and synchronisers for the gears are in pairs, so that to shift from third to fourth, the synchroniser for third is disengaged, and as the selector fork moves along so it engages the synchroniser for fourth.

This is a simple arrangement, but there is inevitably a delay between the disengagement of one pair of gears, and the engagement of the next. This does not matter with a full manual box, but is too slow for a really fast automated box.

Therefore, Lamborghini engineers devised a box in which there is an individual selector shaft and actuator for adjacent gears. With this arrangement, one selector can disengage one synchroniser while the other is engaging the other.

The result is 1.4 times faster shifts than on the e.gear of the Murcielago and Gallardo, which are not that bad. Shifts may be as fast as with a twin-clutch gearbox, but are unlikely to be as smooth. On the other hand, this design is lighter than a twin-clutch unit.