How 2024 Lamborghini Revuelto Tested

With no turbochargers, the sound of the mighty 6.5-liter V-12 is as glorious as ever. Much of it breathes better, from the reworked air intake to a compression ratio that's been jacked up from 11.8:1 to 12.6:1 and finally to an exhaust that flows better at high revs. How high are those revs? The redline is now a mind-boggling 9400 rpm, and peak output is 814 horsepower at a scorching 9250 rpm, some 45 horses and 750 revs more than the exiting Aventador Ultimate. Oh, and the engine sheds a claimed 37 pounds in the bargain.

Moreover, engineers stripped the V-12 of its forward-mounted transmission (the often maligned and always jarring seven-speed automated manual), spun it around 180 degrees, and mated it to a new eight-speed dual-clutch transaxle made by Lamborghini. Placed behind the engine as God intended, this new gearbox is only 22 inches long because it is laid out laterally around two input shafts—one for the even-numbered gears and another for the odd ones—and sits parallel to the half-shaft output flanges. Unlike in its predecessor, shifting is smooth whether you are puttering around town, hammering it in the hills, or making a quarter-mile pass. As with the best dual-clutch automatics, it's nearly impossible to spot the shifts in a speed trace.

The Revuelto has an all-wheel drive like the Aventador, although it's provided by electric motors, not any connection to the V-12. Instead of a transmission tucked between the front seats, there's a 3.4-kWh battery pack. A 147-hp, 110-lb-ft motor buried within the transmission housing can drive the rear wheels when the conditions are right and, along with regenerative energy under braking, keeps the battery topped up.

But the front end is where the action is, because each front wheel is connected independently to its own axial-flow AC motor making 147 horsepower and 254 pound-feet. In straight-line driving, the motors either propel the front axle in unison to the tune of 187 horsepower (the battery's output limit) for a total of 1001 ponies, or they both recuperate significant energy while slowing down the Lamborghini.

The results are stunning, if not electrifying. The Revuelto scorches the pavement to 60 mph in 2.2 seconds, 0.4 seconds quicker than the Aventador LP750-4 Superveloce, and the Revuelto leaves the line with all four tires scrambling for traction. The century mark comes in 4.6 seconds versus 5.8, and we're just getting started. The new Lambo hits 150 mph in 9.9 seconds, an improvement over the old car's 13.0, and crosses the quarter-mile in 9.7 seconds at 148 mph against 10.4 seconds at 136 mph for the Superveloce.

But that's just straight-line performance. The Revuelto positively murders corners, with an otherworldly ability to drive deep in toward the apex, without any hint of understeer. The benefit comes when the torque vectoring combines with rear-wheel steering to make the car seem to shrink around you. The full 508 pound-feet of cross-axle torque vectoring (plus 254 pound-feet on one side, minus 254 pound-feet on the other) can come into play as needed, as one side essentially powers the other. This proves mighty impressive on the tight downhill sweepers in the Anza-Borrego Desert, where the car seems far more nimble than its 4290 pounds would suggest. Granted, much of the newfound weight is centered in the transmission tunnel, but the hellacious torque vectoring is doing major work here. In testing, the 265/35ZR-20 and 345/30ZR-21 Bridgestone Potenza Sport tires generate 1.10 g's of grip versus 1.04 g's for the Aventador SV, which lacked rear-wheel steering and any front-axle torque vectoring.