Bartek S.
Aerodynamic Ace
Lambo's Murciélago is given a proper send-off with the most powerful version to date
If all the senses that get shattered when you drive a truly fast, loud and visceral supercar flat out, the one that’s hardest to put back together is a sense of perspective. The intensity/insanity of the act obliterates normally reliable frames of reference embedded in a world of largely benign forces and sounds. To an F22 Raptor pilot or Lewis Hamilton, it might not seem extraordinary; they’d probably award the experience no-big-deal out of ten. For the rest of us, the hit is pure, mind-scrambling, off-the-scale exhilaration. There are advantages to being merely human.
So a few words of warning to anyone thinking of buying a Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano in the belief that it will feel shockingly fast and as perspective-warping as the good bit of the Oblivion ride at Alton Towers. It will. Especially if you order it with the HGTE chassis upgrade pack which will allow you to brake later and turn harder. It will be a thing of beauty, dynamic grace and a joy forever, too. But if you want it to turn your sensible world coordinates to sushi, whatever you do don’t be tempted to sample – either just before or after – the one car on earth that will put the fiercest Ferrari into perfectly focused perspective: the Lamborghini Murciélago LP670-4 SV.
I’d driven a 599 HGTE a few days before returning to Italy to try the Super Veloce. The thrill generated by the Enzo-engined GT still hadn’t worn off, especially the hot laps around Fiorano. Sir Stirling Moss, making the most of a rare visit to Maranello by chalking up his Fiorano debut with a dozen or so laps in a 250 GT SWB, was later treated to a few more laps in the passenger seat of the 599 and was rendered almost speechless by the experience, later registering his shock at the cornering and braking forces. It’s that sort of car. You get out of it thinking, ‘Well, bring it on. What can possibly deliver more pukka Italian V12 supercar violence than this?’
When Lamborghini released official details of the car that just might – the lighter, more powerful, granite-knuckled swansong version of Lambo’s scissor-doored, mid-engined Murciélago LP640 flagship – I counted myself among the ranks of the slightly dubious. I’d hoped it would have still less weight, more power and rear- rather than four-wheel drive. And surely a nice round 700bhp wouldn’t have been that hard to extract from 6.5 litres and 12 cylinders. A stripped-down, rear-drive Murciélago with 700 horsepower: the definitive Italian exoticar statement.
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