The ultimate V12 trifecta: Aston Martin v Ferrari v Lamborghini – car pictures of the week
V12 supercars are still alive and kicking even in today’s hyper-regulated car market. We test three of the best in the latest issue of evo
The feeling of doom and gloom for those who love emotive high performance cars is pervasive at the moment. Yet for those of us lucky enough to be shopping at the higher end of the series production car market, the offering has arguably never been better. No regulatory mandate or emissions legislation has yet managed to deter Aston Martin, Ferrari or Lamborghini from their dedication to V12 power.
In issue 338 of evo magazine, Henry Catchpole explores what the three main V12-engined players offer in a 36-cylinder showdown, and how their different approaches to regulatory adherence have affected their characters. These are our favourite shots from the test.
It’d be wrong to say they’re the three that are left because none have disappeared – the Aston Martin Vanquish, Ferrari 12 Cilindri and Lamborghini Revuelto follow in much the same tyre tracks that the original Vanquish, 550 Maranello and Murcielago put down in the 2000s, and that the second Vanquish, F12 and Aventador followed in the 2010s. Still, somehow there’s a feeling that they are of an increasingly rarified breed. Certainly the number of cars in the marketplace below their lofty standing that feel as special, are fewer in number in 2025. So perhaps we should celebrate that these three still set the standard.
The story is as it ever was: in the British corner is a brute in a suit. Hiding behind the Aston’s massaged yet muscular carbon coachwork is a 5.2-litre twin-turbo V12, possessed of a barrel-chested 737lb ft from 2500rpm to surge you forward before its peak of 824bhp arrives at 6500rpm. Under the Ferrari’s retrofuturistic nose – aft the cabin, before the wheels, is quite a more frenetic, altogether different, quintessentially Italian flavour of V12. Naturally-aspirated, good for 9500rpm, yielding its 500lb ft only at 7250rpm and its 819bhp at a heady 9250rpm.
The Sant'Agatan option has always been the outlier – a mid-engined supercar rather than a front-engined, long-legged GT. The Revuelto is a much more expensive option in this generation too – you could spend well over double the base price of the Ferrari and Aston with very little effort in the configurator. But it’s a more sophisticated machine too, combining hybrid tech with its 6.5-litre V12. The result is, as in the Aston, performance you don’t have to wait for, but as with the Ferrari a naturally aspirated V12 character still dominates the experience. How do they compare and can there be a winner? Pick up a copy of issue 338 to find out.
‘There is just something immutably wonderful about the grandeur and complexity of a big V12. We all love many shapes and sizes of engine, but there is no denying the innate impressiveness of six-a-side. In the same way that a good boxing match is a good boxing match no matter the category, we are all nonetheless drawn, mysterium tremendum et fascinans, to the awesome spectacle of a heavyweight bout more than any other.’ – Henry Catchpole, evo 338.
