November 2018 Issue #23 November 2018 Issue #23 | Page 93

The next V-12 will be the first Lamborghini designed completely by the brand’s new, as of
March 2016, chief designer, Mitja Borkert. Mitja (pronounced Meecha, like nice to meet ya) has
of course been involved with cars released since he’s been on board—the Centenario Road-
ster was the first Lambo he did any work on, and of course the Urus has his fingerprints on it.
Never forget, however, that designs are usually locked years before you see them. Speaking of
seeing, every time I see Borkert, I implore him to make sure that when a young child sees the
next V-12, said kid jumps in the air, waves his or her arms, and starts screaming. That’s known
as the Countach effect. Luckily, Borkert has a young son, and he assures me that this will be
the case. Additionally, Borkert has some real chops. While at Porsche he designed both the
Panamera Sport Turismo and the Misson E Concept, now known as Taycan. Borkert’s Terzo
Millennio Concept is pretty smoking hot, too.
One of the perennial complaints about the Aventador is the ISR single-clutch transmission. No
matter what, the ISR isn’t great to drive at low speeds. Head of R&D Maurizio Regionni ex-
plained that when they began designing the Aventador back in 2008, dual-clutch transmissions
were not so good, and those that could hope to handle the Aventador’s power and torque (like
the Ricardo dual-clutch in the Bugatti Veyron) were prohibitively expensive (ahem—like the
Ricardo dual-clutch in the Bugatti Veyron). You can’t just swap one out for the other—the ISR’s
housing is long and skinny, whereas a dual-clutch box tends to be squat and fat. You can ex-
pect the next V-12 to have either a dual-clutch or an automatic transmission. Manual? No way.
The car will be a hybrid. Natural aspiration has become a Lamborghini brand value. Sadly,
Lambo is close to the limit of what they can squeeze out of a naturally aspirated engine. The
solution to more power is to go electric. Expect the hybrid motor to be in the transmission and
mode dependent. So if you enter a city where gas-burning vehicles are banned (coming soon-
er than you think!), the new Lambo can putz around in electric mode. Put the car in sport, and
the extra electric torque can be sent just to the rear axle. Track mode allows the torque to be
meted out to whichever axle needs the boost the most. How much power are we talking? LP
900-4 has a nice ring to it (900 or so combined ponies).
In exactly the same way that the Centenario previewed the Aventador SVJ, you can expect an
upcoming though not officially announced final Aventador product to preview the next V-12 car.
So in about a year Lamborghini will release another ultra-limited super, duper car. I hear that
upfront it’s a mashup of the Aventador and the Urus. Interesting, to say the least. And it will be
a hybrid.
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