2012 Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4 First Look

The Murcielago's welded alloy tube-frame chassis was an old-school life-support system for its monstrous but dated 6.5-liter V12. For all its brutal charm, much of its technology was rooted in the past. What Lamborghini needed, its president claimed, was a two-generation leap.

And, technically at least, that's what his engineering team has delivered with the 2012 Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4.

Clad in a typically aggressive body shell, it's based around a carbon-fiber chassis and clings to the road with a sophisticated pushrod suspension. Then there's the all-new V12 engine and a radical seven-speed gearbox. Even if it's not a full two generations ahead of its predecessor, no one is likely to argue that it's not at least one generation ahead of its competition.

The Guts of the Beast
Lamborghini released details of the Aventador's driveline months ago, but it has been less forthcoming about its new flagship's body structure. Now we can finally reveal that the Aventador is made up of not one, but three different carbon-fiber technologies. The result is a passenger cell that weighs just 325 pounds, but with more than twice the torsional stiffness of the Murcielago.

It's this torsional stiffness, coupled with a race-inspired pushrod suspension setup and double forged aluminum wishbones all round that will give the Aventador the handling accuracy it will need to cope with the frightening speeds it is capable of. The pushrods remotely relay the wheel forces to springs and Ohlins damper units mounted directly to the chassis. Up front, the forged aluminum pushrod attaches to a unit directly in front of the windscreen, while the rear units sit almost horizontally and attach just behind the engine.

The new suspension layout allows for larger braking units, too. Up front, the Aventador uses massive 15.7-inch carbon-ceramic rotors clamped by six-piston monobloc calipers, while the rear setup gets 15-inch rotors and four-piston calipers. There are custom-designed Pirelli P Zeros all round, too, with seemingly tiny 255/35R19s up front and monstrous 335/30R20s in back.

Despite the ultra-lightweight chassis, by the time Lamborghini added everything else, the 2012 Lamborghini Aventador ended up at 3,472 pounds — 22 more than the old Murcielago SV and only 198 pounds lighter than the Murcielago LP650-4. It's better than being heavier, but it's a far cry from the 400 pounds of weight savings that was being talked about only half a year ago.

Science Behind the Speed
Lamborghini has built a new 5,400-square-meter carbon production facility at Sant'Agata to build and bring together the three different carbon-fiber production methods that come together on the Aventador — two of which have never been seen anywhere else before.

The first is RTM Lambo, a resin transfer molding system developed by Lamborghini and the University of Washington. Among its various benefits are a high level of automation, lighter carbon-fiber molds, a low resin injection pressure and far lower curing temperatures. Lamborghini then uses epoxy foam shapes to build spaces inside the tub that also double as harmonic dampers.

Top speed? Lamborghini officially says it's 217 mph, though engineers admit to seeing more than that in testing.

Then there's another carbon breakthrough called Braiding which weaves carbon strands into tubular shapes ideal for adding strength in the A-pillar and down in the sill. They are also, handily, easy to replace in collisions.

Lamborghini also uses the traditional, labor-intensive prepreg system for all the surfaces people see and touch. It gives the surface a more finished look and is easier to paint.

Even after combining all three carbon systems and curing them together, Lamborghini says it can still manage production panel tolerances of just 0.1mm.

Heart of the Beast
A clean-sheet engine is a rare thing these days, and it's even more rare when you're talking about 500-800 cars a year. Yet a clean sheet is exactly what Volkswagen Group boss Dr. Martin Winterkorn gave Lamborghini's engineers, and they ran with it.

At 6,498cc, the new V12 is roughly the same size as the old Murcielago engine, but that's where the resemblance ends. Its crankshaft is different, its cylinder heads are different, its bore and stroke are different. Even the bore centers are different. The only thing it retains from the old engine is the 60-degree V angle.

It's an enormously oversquare device with a 95mm bore and 76.4mm stroke, mainly, as Technical Director Maurizio Reggiani admitted, to reduce piston speeds at its 8,250 rpm power peak. Still dry-sumped, the engine has a silicone-alloy crankcase with seven bearings and a bedplate with eight integrated scavenge pumps to extract any last drop of unwanted oil.

The crank itself is a far lighter and stiffer unit, forged and nitride hardened, and spins beneath a pair of 32-valve cylinder heads that contain variable valve timing and lift technology, plus in-cylinder ionization to precisely control each spark and prevent any pre-ignition. Lamborghini insisted on this last piece of technology because, at 11.8:1, its compression ratio is high, enough to warrant more precision in case of poor fuel.

With 690 horsepower and 509 pound-feet of torque, the new motor is not only more powerful and lighter than the old engine, it revs all the way to 8,250 rpm and is strong enough to launch the Aventador from zero to 62 mph (100 km/h) in just 2.9 seconds. Top speed? Lamborghini officially says it's 217 mph, though engineers admit to seeing more than that in testing.

But this engine, an unforgiving refinement of existing road and race principles, wasn't developed in isolation. While Lamborghini's engine development once stood alone, it's now part of an entire powertrain department, so it was developed in concert with the new electronic architecture, the new Haldex IV center differential, the driveshafts and, last but definitely not least, the gearbox.

The old six-speeder was past its time and, in keeping with the "two generations" ethos, Lamborghini and Graziano developed the most radical, audacious gearbox in production today. The seven-speed unit is called an ISR (independent shifting rods) gearbox, and boasts the fastest gearchange times in the production car world today. At 0.05 second in Corsa mode, it can change gear faster than the Ferrari Scuderia or 599 GTO.

It's a two-shaft gearbox (again, designed from a clean sheet of paper) and it's been derived from ideas used in racing gearboxes developed by Australian Peter Hollinger. It breaks up the traditional gear pairings so that, as one gear is disengaging, the next one can be engaged by a different shifting rod simultaneously.

The whole unit is 265 pounds, which is 2.2 pounds lighter than the old gearbox, but with an extra gear, and there's far less rotational inertia, too. It channels power to a Haldex center differential which usually sends 70 percent of the drive to the rear end, but can switch that instantly to 100 percent (or zero) if it needs to. It could, theoretically, send 100 percent drive to the front, but the front diff is too small to handle quite that much torque.

Styling Remains Bullish
Covering all of this is a body shell built for both speed and drama. Unlike the Murcielago, when the Aventador needs more air at higher speed, it doesn't create more drag by opening a set of batwings. Instead, the 2012 Lamborghini Aventador uses active aerodynamics to open movable ducts in the side flanks for the oil cooler, while the higher side openings are purely to feed air into the engine.

There's a flat undertray to help the downforce at high speed and the rear wing also moves automatically. It has three settings, dropping down to 5 degrees at very high speed and lifting up to 11 degrees to help with the handling.

Inside, the Reventon's dalliance with TFT instrument-cluster screens has paid dividends, because the Aventador has three of them in the dash alone plus another for the MMI screen, mounted high on the center of the dash.

This has allowed Lamborghini to provide all manner of information and give all manner of options, including switching the speedo to a lower priority on the Corsa (track driving) mode so the driver can have a more prominent tachometer.

Two Steps Ahead?
Clearly the 2012 Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4 is more than just a reskinned and updated Murcielago. The styling isn't ground-breaking by any means, but how much more radical than a Reventon can you get before it starts to look ridiculous?

The proof will come when we get behind the wheel. Hard to believe that nearly 700 hp and an ultra-stiff carbon-fiber chassis won't make for a heroic experience. Then again, you can have too much of a good thing. We'll see for sure this summer.