Lamborghini Aventador SVJ (2019) Fast Fleet test – five months in a £500k supercar

It’s often said that today’s supercars are perfectly useable machines, that you could drive one every day if you wanted to. Which begs the question, if you could, why wouldn’t you? As I climbed aboard our latest Fast Fleet arrival for its maiden voyage with evo, it felt like I was about to find out.

It was a November evening, so it was dark, cold and raining. The windscreen was taking an age to demist; the headlights seemed so feeble that I twice checked it wasn’t just the glow from the DRLs I was seeing (it wasn’t). Several miles of unlit, breathe-in-for-oncoming-vehicles country roads lay ahead, to be negotiated in one of the widest supercars there is. Oh, and rather than winter tyres, it was wearing a set of P Zero Corsas.

Still, there was no backing out now. Having shamelessly thrust my hand into the air to be the first on the evo team to spend some time in our Aventador SVJ long-termer, I’d made my 759bhp, £440,000-with-options bed, so now I had to lie in it.

23

As I acclimatised to the surroundings (did I mention FR624ZF is also a left-hooker?), those first few miles were embarrassingly slow. Disjointed, too, the SVJ’s powertrain clearly not at its smoothest when driven in such a bridled fashion. Perhaps it would rather be somewhere else, probably on a circuit setting another production car lap record – as indeed this very car did at the Hockenheim GP circuit back in 2019.

Clearly I needed to at least attempt to speak its language: engage full manual mode to stop the clunky single-clutch gearbox throwing its own shifts into the mix, lift the 6.5-litre V12 into the part of its rev band where it breathes more freely, and get more determined with all the controls, as if to let the car know I was ready for what it had to offer – even if I wasn’t entirely sure that I was. And then it happened; suddenly I got my first glimpse of the real SVJ: alive, able to flow along the road, and considerably less intimidating as a result. Phew. Maybe the Lamborghini long-termer dream wouldn’t be completely shattered after all.

Admittedly, the SVJ resides towards the less docile end of the modern supercar spectrum, but in theory it still ought to be possible to use it as a ‘daily’. So over the next few months we’ll be finding out if indeed it is – come rain or shine, sleet or snow – and hopefully discovering what all those owners who tuck such cars away so much of the time are missing out on.

23

One thing that quickly becomes apparent is that nothing lifts the spirits on a gloomy winter’s day like the sight of a bright green Aventador. In the context of ‘regular’ cars it looks utterly, magnificently otherworldly and mesmerises onlookers like no other supercar. The reactions it draws are overwhelmingly positive, too – almost reverential. Everyone, it appears, feels they are in the presence of something truly special.

> Lamborghini Aventador SVJ v Nissan GT-R Nismo

And this is before you’ve started the engine. It seems borderline criminal that such low-volume (and in most cases low-mileage) mechanical works of art are being condemned to the same fate as the millions of workaday units that exist merely to provide propulsion. Prodding the starter button on your 2000bhp electric supercar of 2030 certainly won’t have bystanders whooping with joy, or taking a step back in awe, or hitting record on their phone and begging you to blip the throttle. Nor will spines be set a-tingle by a high-revs drive-by, and no matter what mind-boggling acceleration figures are achievable with batteries and brushless motors, they will surely never deliver even half the drama of a Lamborghini V12 being worked through a sequence of gears.

All the more reason, then, to enjoy cars such as this as much as possible right now, by driving as many miles in them as possible. Lessons we’ve learned so far by doing just that in our SVJ? The front axle lift is a godsend, ensuring the expensive splitter and underparts have cleared every speed bump we’ve encountered. Manoeuvrability is surprisingly good, the four-wheel steering ensuring a respectable turning circle (handy when we took the SVJ into London for a shoot alongside the Nissan GT-R Nismo). 

23

Visibility is a bit troublesome, there being virtually none through the rear window, and no second section in the side mirrors to show what’s happening in your blind spots. And walking-pace traffic is the ISR transmission’s nemesis, the repeated engaging and disengaging of the clutch onto first gear making for slightly lurching progress; better to hang back a few car lengths and then drive smoothly forward with a touch more speed.

> Lamborghini Revuelto 2025 review – the ultimate modern supercar

Such considerations all ensure that even the most mundane of journeys is no longer mundane, but inevitably it’s on open roads that the SVJ really makes an impression, and the great news is that, despite appearances, you don’t have to be driving it at lap-record-setting pace to enjoy it. You won’t be deploying the full 759bhp too often on wintry asphalt anyway, but those Corsas remain surprisingly capable and reveal exactly how hard they’re working, which makes the SVJ an unexpectedly easy car to make the most of in less-than-perfect conditions, as you can be confident of keeping it within its – or more likely your – comfort zone.

This story first featured in evo issue 283.