2022 Lamborghini Aventador Ultimae First Drive Review: The Last of a Dying Breed

As the Lamborghini Aventador enters its 10th model 12 months, it really is apparent they you should not make ’em like they used to. The Aventador Ultimae is the ultimate iteration of Lamborghini’s nonelectrified, normally aspirated V12 supercar, and the automaker pulled out all the stops to give this road car some above-the-top general performance.

The motor dwelling beneath the Aventador’s three panes of rear glass puts out a stonkin’ 769 horsepower and 531 pound-feet of torque. Depressing the Ultimae’s begin button showers the bordering place in a sonorous 12-cylinder growl that turns into an outright hellish shriek as the tachometer needle closes in on its 8,700-rpm redline. Get this thing into a tunnel and your smile will not dissipate for days.

2022 Lamborghini Aventador Ultimae


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2022 Lamborghini Aventador Ultimae

This is Lamborghini’s previous normally aspirated V12.

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All that power shoves along a car with a suppress bodyweight of just 3,417 lbs, which usually means acceleration is totally brutal. Reaching 62 mph requires just 2.8 seconds, and sensation the physics at get the job done is an expertise that dominates the senses. This vehicle will pull until the warmth demise of the universe, the entire body squirming ever so a little bit at increased revs as the Lamborghini does almost everything in its electrical power to preserve all-wheel traction.

Ultimately, although, you will have to improve gears, and which is when the powertrain showcases its extraordinary capacity to create overwhelmingly optimistic and detrimental emotions concurrently. The Ultimae employs the similar fashion of transmission as every single other Aventador, and it is bad in all but the narrowest of use circumstances. The 7-pace single-clutch automatic transmission will rip off good, lightning-quick shifts at complete throttle, which is terrific if the car is becoming carried by Chinook from racetrack to racetrack. In any remotely genuine-world state of affairs, however, the shifts choose so very long to approach that you wonder if there is actually a smaller individual in the transmission tunnel bodily transferring the shift forks. Around Los Angeles, which I would take into account one particular of this car’s normal habitats, employing additional than just one equipment elicits long pauses and head bobs as the Aventador will work to determine out which gear arrives soon after third (hint: it can be fourth). Even midthrottle shifts at an aggressive avenue speed require some time in the ready home.

Back again when the transmission was produced, it was decided on since of its means to cope with gobs of torque, which dual-clutch transmissions at the time could not. On the other hand, in a environment crammed with equally capable McLarens and Ferraris that are almost as comfortable to every day-travel as a Volkswagen Golfing, the Lamborghini Aventador Ultimae stands out like a sore thumb.

2022 Lamborghini Aventador Ultimae


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2022 Lamborghini Aventador Ultimae

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Climbing into the sky on California’s Angeles Crest Highway, the Aventador Ultimae jobs its presence. Its lower, large overall body dominates the lane but delivers remarkable balance. When a car feels this planted this usually, it begs the driver to dial in a tiny more electric power and brake a very little later on with just about every successive change. Even spirited driving in locations seemingly engineered for this type of manhandling will only enable you contact a sliver of its complete capability, but you will under no circumstances want to halt your quest to grab that golden ring. The car’s standard magnetorheological suspension delivers a lot of interaction between car and road, but not so considerably that it becomes unpleasant. The dampers do not supply the supple every day-driving characteristics of McLaren’s hydraulic witchcraft, but it can be not far off, and Lamborghini’s nose carry technique will preserve that carbon-fiber lip free of steep-driveway blemishes.

Tactility performs a large element in the in general Aventador Ultimae knowledge. The steering wheel is the correct amount of money of chunky, and even in the car’s chillest Strada travel manner, it carries the suitable amount of money of excess weight. The throttle is easy to manipulate in smaller amounts. The brake pedal feels even better, featuring a progressive original bite for additional sedate stops. Nevertheless, if you are in danger of overcooking a corner, just stand on the pedal and all those massive (15.7-inch entrance, 14.9-inch rear) carbon-ceramic rotors will almost glue the car’s Pirelli P-Zero Corsa effectiveness summer months tires in area. Even the mounted-placement aluminum shift paddles are enjoyable to contact.

Visibility, on the other hand, is awful. I guess you never have to have to worry about what is at the rear of you when you might be the quickest automobile in a specified county, but the Aventador’s blind spots are additional like blind hemispheres. There is no blind-spot monitoring tech, so freeway lane alterations call for some religion that other drivers will see and listen to the 6-figure rolling artwork set up and purposefully prevent it out of panic. Reversing might be the least difficult issue to do, though, as the backup camera in the gauge cluster provides a vast discipline of view in substantial resolution. Forward visibility sucks, for the reason that the windshield’s rake places the best of the cowl at eye stage for drivers previously mentioned 6 ft. Prepare for a great deal of neck bending to determine targeted visitors-light-weight shade, and heaven aid you if you need to have on a helmet in this point.

2022 Lamborghini Aventador Ultimae


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2022 Lamborghini Aventador Ultimae

The highlight of the Aventador’s inside is its exquisite focus to element.

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The backup camera also represents the superior place in the Aventador Ultimae’s cabin tech. The display screen atop the transmission tunnel runs Audi’s original (more than a decade outdated) MMI infotainment program, relying solely on a dial and four buttons for inputs. It is functional, but again, it lags the competitors by a truthful bit. That claimed, it does support Apple CarPlay and Android Car, which can be set up by means of the car’s one USB-A port amongst the seats. You will find also a real-offer CD participant crafted into the driver’s side of the transmission tunnel, a huge trace at the decade in which this vehicle was conceived and a genuinely appealing characteristic supplied how the marketplace has largely deserted optical disc drives. The digital gauge exhibit is fantastic, nevertheless, giving sufficient information scaled in conditions of functionality-driving priority.

When the cabin’s tech could not impress to the finest extent, the aesthetics absolutely do. Make excellent is excellent, the bodily switches are exciting to use and some of the little aspects scattered about seriously do make the Aventador Ultimae truly feel special. What isn’t really covered in suede is wrapped in leather or carbon fiber, and it all feels costly. The pattern etched into the gentle stuff on the dashboard is the two visually and bodily appealing.

Outside the house, the Aventador Ultimae is basically to some degree restrained. Meant as a greatest-of-both-worlds design that combines the capability of the Aventador SVJ with the (fairly) demure appearance of the Aventador S, this supercar ditches hardcore components like a preset wing and canards in favor of a far more pared-back again glance. But followers of peacocking, anxiety not — the Ultimae continue to guarantees a gigantic rear diffuser, an electrically managed adjustable rear spoiler and aspect skirts sharp ample to butcher a cow. You will not go unnoticed.

2022 Lamborghini Aventador Ultimae


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2022 Lamborghini Aventador Ultimae

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By the time you happen to be looking through this, your chance of scooping up a new Aventador Ultimae is already absent. The model’s total operate of 350 coupes and 250 roadsters is spoken for — some twice above, as a handful of of them are now mingling with seawater off the coast of the Azores. But there are some pretty fantastic alternate options out there. The Lamborghini Huracan is lesser, but its V10 rips and this auto feels a lot, a great deal newer and is considerably far more compliant in everyday use. The McLaren 720S is only fantastic no issue in which it is driven. If electrification piques your curiosity and you can’t wait around till the Aventador’s successor comes to market, Ferrari delivers fantastic choices like the 296 GTB and SF90 Stradale.

The 2022 Lamborghini Aventador Ultimae is a critical supercar — and with its $558,853 as-examined price, a seriously costly 1 at that. It does not endeavor to mince text or walk on eggshells. It makes its functionality-ahead presence noticeable at all situations, featuring its house owners 1 final quasi-aged-college experience in advance of electrification swoops into the frame. It is by no suggests great, and some components can be downright abusive, but it is a pure product or service of its time, and it provides an experience that hearkens to an important slice of automotive heritage.

2022 Lamborghini Aventador Ultimae Is Even Crazier Than It Appears to be like

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