Lamborghini is Giving Us 770 Reasons To Love The Aventador SVJ

TopSpeed

By Kirby Garlitos

Published Aug 24, 2018

That's tons of power for a car that's limited to 900 units

The Lamborghini Aventador SVJ finally showed its face at the 2018 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, and as expected, it’s packing a walloping 770 horsepower and 531 pound-feet of torque. The more potent version of the Aventador SV is now the most potent V-12-powered Lamborghini in history, a distinction it earned over the 740-horsepower Aventador SV. The Aventador SVJ is also poised to become a rare unicorn with Lamborghini only building 900 units.

Lamborghini knows how to make a statement, doesn’t it? With a lot of debuts happening at Pebble Beach, the Italian automaker grabbed the spotlight in a vice grip with no plans of letting it go. For what it’s worth, though, the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ deserves the adulation. This is Lambo at its rip-roaring best, a performance-laden specimen of a machine that’s going to give prancing horses nightmares.

The headlines will say 770 horsepower and 531 pound-feet of torque, but the Aventador SVJ is a hell of a lot more than just its power numbers. It’s also a masterpiece in aerodynamic technology, thanks in large part to Lamborghini’s second-generation Aerodynamic Lamborghini Attiva (ALA), or ALA 2.0, for short. The active aerodynamic system can manipulate the amount of aerodynamic load the Aventador SVJ needs in specific conditions, achieving high downforce or low drag through a series of flaps that activate, when needed, in less than 500 milliseconds. That’s less than half-a-second, in case you’re wondering.

When the ALA is on in the front, and the flaps are open, drag is reduced, which, in turn, creates an ideal situation for drivers to drop the hammer and gun the supercar to its full performance potential. Turn off the ALA, and the closed flaps help generate increased downforce, improving the SVJ’s performance in tight corners. The same principle applies in the rear. When the ALA is off, the rear flaps close and the rear wing functions more like a traditional fixed wing, increasing downforce in that section of the car. Turn on the ALA and the flaps open, increasing drag in high-speed situations.

The car’s powerhouse 6.5-liter V-12 engine works together with ALA 2.0 to help the Aventador SVJ achieve incredible performance numbers. Take its sprint-to-62-mph-time, for example. The Lambo can make it in 2.8 seconds. Extend that run to 124 mph, and it can clock in a time of just 8.6 seconds. Top speed is rated at 216 mph, which is absurdly fast. Turn it around, and the Aventador SVJ can also brake to a standstill from 62 mph in a distance of just 98 feet, five inches.

And let’s not forget, the Aventador SVJ is also the same car that romped its way into the record books when it destroyed the Porsche 911 GT2 RS’ production car lap record at the Nurburgring by almost three seconds. Think the Porsche’s lap time of 6:47.30 was fast? The Lamborghini Aventador SVJ did it in 6:44.97.

You can’t put a price tag on record-breaking achievements, but in the case of the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ, that price amounts to $517,700. Only 963 units will be built, 63 of which will be the commemorative special Aventador SVJ 63, a nod to 1963, the year Lamborghini was born.

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