I have never stood on an aircraft carrier and listened as a fighter jet takes off. I imagine you’re subjected to quite a racket. I have, however, stood about 500 feet behind a Lamborghini Centenario as it combatively launched in Thrust mode, all three tailpipes disgorging a ferocious wail of mechanical insanity. Which is louder, jet or car? I can’t say, but I wouldn’t feel stupid betting on this outrageous bull. I asked Lamborghini’s always-smiling head of research and development, Maurizio Reggiani, why on earth he would build a car this chronically, aurally obnoxious. Through a beaming grin he told me that his customers feel that other Aventadors are “not loud enough.” Touché.
Named in honor of the 100th anniversary of namesake founder Ferruccio Lamborghini’s birth, the Sant’Agata HQed supercar maker is selling a grand total of 40 production cars: 20 coupes and 20 roadsters. There is but a single development car, the bare carbon-fiber coupe pictured here, known as 0 of 20. The coupes cost about $2.2 million; the softtops go for $2.4 million. If you want unpainted carbon like 0 of 20, it will cost you an additional $200,000. All 40 Centenarios are already paid for. In fact, Lamborghini sold 30 of them at Pebble Beach last year by showing potential customers a sketch. Must be nice.
The Centenario is based on the Aventador Superveloce, though as its LP 770-4 moniker indicates, power out of the ferocious and thankfully still naturally aspirated mid-mounted, 6.5-liter V-12 is up from 741 horsepower to 759 crazed cavalli. How did they squeeze out those 18 extra horses? By raising the redline from 8,350 to 8,600 rpm. Top speed—just a tick over 217 mph—remains the same as the SV, and while Lamborghini is claiming a 0-62-mph time of 2.8 seconds, our testing crew managed to rocket sled the Superveloce to 60 mph in 2.6 seconds—same as a McLaren P1. Expect the Cent to be the same or quicker, or even a touch slower. Huh? Well, I got to deploy Thrust mode twice, and it seems to me that the transmission doesn’t shift quite as violently. But maybe I was just distracted by the roar behind my head?
The seven-speed independent shifting-rod transmission—aka ISR—remains, though the logic has been changed. The Centenario has the SV’s LMR (Lamborghini Magnetic Ride) dampers, but here they react even quicker, completing the processing cycle in 1 millisecond. The rear wheels now steer, a Lamborghini first. There’s more carbon fiber and less sound insulation than in the Superveloce, yet Reggiani says the Centenario only weighs 12 pounds less than the SV—a typical Italian “dry weight” fib/claim of 3,344 pounds; that would equate to 3,888 pounds by our measurements. Turns out things like rear-wheel steering and hydraulics for the wing add weight back in. Oh yeah, the massive pop-up carbon wing helps out with active aerodynamics. When in the top position, that wing creates 180 percent more downforce than when it’s down.
As for passive aero, there’s a whole lot of it. Starting with what you can’t see, the underbody has been further optimized to make the Centenario more slippery. The underbody also feeds the comically oversized diffuser, which helps keep the rear end planted. Likewise, the two big nostrils in the hood divert air over the Aventador’s extreme 25-degree raked windshield. These two outlets are fed by openings behind the double front splitters. Those splitters also provide downforce. The carbon-fiber wheel covers whisk hot air away from the giant carbon-ceramic brakes. Let’s not forget those bargeboards! The wildest aero tweak has got to be the vented headlights, which gulp in and then channel air around the Centenario’s bulgy front fenders.
The above paragraph explains why the Centenario looks the way it does. Gotta be honest: This is not my favorite Lamborghini design. The Centenario is extreme for sure, and in unpainted carbon fiber it looks like the proper exotic that it is. However, it’s not sexy like the Superveloce is. It sure ain’t no Countach. Also, like the new Bugatti Chiron, when viewed from the side, the Cent looks like a smaller car is escaping from a larger one, though unlike the two-tone Bugatti, the effect isn’t as pronounced. Although functional, the double front splitters look weird. As for the extreme diffuser and its yellow-tipped strakes, well, it’s frankly bizarre. I do like the rear wheel arches, but mainly because they remind me of an Alfa Romeo Disco Volante. Maybe another color combo would help? So far, Lambo’s only built this one car, plus the identically liveried styling buck/show car we saw on the stand at the 2016 Geneva show. We’ll all have to wait and look at the customer examples to see how another scheme looks. I’m not holding my breath.
I will say that my aesthetic opinion of the LP 770-4 did change somewhat after chasing the Centenario around while driving a modified Aventador SV the engineering team referred to as The Laboratory. Lamborghini also had a regular flavor white Aventador on hand, so we could compare all three. The “base” car was incapable of staying anywhere near the Centenario. Anyhow, from my low perch in the yellow SV Laboratory (a Superveloce with four-wheel steering!), my primary focus was the Centenario’s massive rear tires. Just like the SV, the Centenario’s rear wheels are clothed in gargantuan 355/25/21 meats, only now they are essentially exposed. Then suddenly the big rear wing pops up, and for a moment I feel like I’m chasing Batman’s Tumbler. To slightly revise what I wrote above, the Centenario looks better outside than it does sitting on a show stand and better still when it’s in motion. Also, get used to that Dark Knight-esque view of the car’s wide butt. On the road, that’s all you will ever see. Not that you’re likely to ever see one. …
Lamborghini flew six of us (in two teams of three) out to the heel of the boot of Italy to test drive all three Aventadors on Porsche’s Nardo Technical Center’s 16-corner handling circuit. Breaking my wrist by patting myself on the back for a minute, all six of the journalists given access to the Centenario were hand-picked by Reggiani himself. If I may keep the humble brag going for a sentence longer, yours truly was the only American. See, this was something more than a test drive. Reggiani and his team were soliciting feedback, as the Centenario isn’t quite finished yet. Customer cars go to their new homes in late 2016 or early 2017. What would we change? What didn’t we like? What would we add? Finally, are they going to listen to a word we say? Who knows, but if the car ships with some sort of high-mounted redline indicator, you can thank me and some German dude.
Mpriminprotya1996 Daniel Jenkins Here
ReplyDeleteorvollaywig