lamborghini avendator review

               Lamborghini 
                                                     AVENDATOR 

This supercar goes topless in the swank Ocean Avenue of Miami.

Thrill seekers rejoice. There is a new God to worship. The Roadster version of the Lamborghini Aventador. And it’s more than everything you’ve dreamt of. When being mobbed by onlookers or zipping away at 350kph, the carmaker has not held back on any of the traditional Lamborghini drama. It’s been given a two-piece carbon fibre roof that has to be manually fixed or removed with the help of latches and pins. It’s cleverly designed to split into two carbon panels that, individually, are quite light and can be stowed neatly in the small boot under the nose. For sheer visual appeal, that’s a darn sight better than if the roof was to fold rearwards and hide the glorious view of the delectably designed engine cover. This, and the glossy black buttresses that hide the rollover protection system, are the biggest differences that set the new Roadster apart from the
Aventador coupé.

The Aventador Roadster is breathtaking. From the moment you set your eyes on this beauty, there’s little that can distract you. You can’t miss it or mistake it for anything but a Lamborghini. The Audi-owned Italian sportscar maker’s new flagship is as outrageous as it gets. There’s not a curve in sight, only diamond and hexagon shapes, and lines sharp enough to make your eyes bleed.. The large 20-inch rear wheels (the largest on a Lambo yet) look like flying saucers and complement the Aventador’s sci-fi looks.

How attractive this car is becomes evident on Miami’s swank Ocean Avenue, where even the super-rich turn heads and whip out mobile phones for a quick shot. If you’re not used to attracting attention, you might want to disappear deep inside the carbon-fibre tub to hide from the intense stares, smiles and thumbs ups all around. But chances are, if you’ve forked out the equivalent of a small flat in Mumbai, you sure as hell want everyone to know about it.

And of course, it’s an Aventador, so, the razor-sharp looks are backed up by incredible performance. We took it to the Homestead race track outside of Miami to see for ourselves. The Roadster uses the coupé’s 6.5-litre, quad-cam V12, which churns out a colossal 690hp and 686Nm of torque. It weighs 1625kg, which is an inconsequential 50kg more than the coupé, and hence the power-to-weight ratio works out to a staggering 425hp per tonne – enough to blitz past 100kph from a standstill in three seconds flat and rocket to a top speed of 350kph – with the roof off. Of course, reaching and maintaining such speeds will come at the cost of sucking the 90-litre fuel tank dry in less than an hour’s time. This makes the lip service Lamborghini pays to the environment with its stop-start system and cylinder deactivation rather laughable                        .     

The Aventador’s acceleration is explosive. There’s a ferocious tug at any point in the rev band, which is unrelenting all the way up to the 8,500rpm redline. However, it’s only on a track that you can really wring this brilliant V12 hard enough to experience its shattering performance and dramatic sound.                                   

Grip levels are phenomenal and it takes you a while to build up enough confidence to even get the tyres to chirp under hard cornering. A sophisticated four-wheel-drive system and fast-acting stability control give you a sense of security, but the truth is that the Aventador is not an easy car to drive on the limit. It doesn’t handle as precisely or predictably as smaller exotics like the Ferrari 458 or McLaren MP4-12C. The steering is quick, no doubt, and the ceramic brakes are staggeringly effective, but the Aventador has an edgy feel to it, accentuated by the noticeable weight transfer under hard acceleration, braking and cornering. As a result, the Aventador shifts around a lot, even on a smooth track, and you are constantly making corrections. The cumbersome handling and bone-jarringly hard ride don’t give it the finesse or finely honed feel of a Ferrari.

The Aventador’s seven-speed, single-clutch automated manual gearbox takes no prisoners either, and is nowhere near as smooth as the twin-clutch systems in some of its competitors. Like with the coupé, the Strada, Sport and Corsa settings alter throttle maps, the torque split between the front and rear wheels, and the speed of the shifts. If gearshifts could cause you bodily harm, it would happen in the Aventador’s full-attack Corsa mode. Each tug of the paddles is like being struck by a lightning bolt and makes you feel like an F1 driver. In Strada mode, optimised for normal driving, Lamborghini claims the shifts are much smoother, but the transmission still felt quite jerky crawling through Miami’s traffic.

The Aventador is a demanding machine, one that won’t make it easy for you. But then, that’s exactly how Lambo owners like their cars to be.
There are some parts however, of the Roadster that are a bit tame. On the inside, while the digital instrumentation and red, ‘missile launcher’-style flip-up cover have all the elements of a fighter jet’s cockpit, a lot of the switchgear and the familiar MMI interface feel like they’ve been plucked out of an Audi. And this really stands out in a car where most other things are on an extreme scale.

The Aventador Roadster’s Rs 4.77 crore (and that was a pre-budget figure) ex-showroom Delhi price is anything but practical. Stretches where the car can truly come into its own are hard to come by as is the fuel (97 octane petrol) difficult to find. But then, whoever said these cars were about sense and practicality? This is not your average, run-of-the-mill work to home commuter. The incredible styling and unbelievable performance makes you feel like no other car can, not even a Ferrari. And this is evident in the numbers of customers lining up to buy this car. The Aventador Roadster is sold out till 2014