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FUEL? THE FERRARI 8 12
Superfast’s gauge indicates
it’s one-third full, but the
Aventador SVJ will need
juice soon. Again. Give the
Lamborghini the stick, and
the distance-to-empty readout counts down like a New Year’s
Eve clock. Oil? No need to check because the level is monitored
electronically, but we do pop the lids nonetheless to share the
two crackling and sizzling works of art with the gas station
attendant and his chums. Exhaust? Set on free-flow, the crass
noises speak of greased regulatory palms, but blipping the
throttles makes everybody smile. Even Desdemona, the shop
owner’s deaf dog, starts up and pricks her ears.
Over three days spent in these two 12-cylinder-powered
Italian titans, snippets like these compile a pictorial travel diary
inside your head. Other cast members: an aged woman sitting
outside her home who responds to the sudden V-24 attack
by instinctively reaching for—and missing—her fawning
cat; the two Carabinieri who slip into Mille Miglia-inspired
fasta! fasta! wave-through enthusiasm as soon as we roar into
sight; the momentarily ambitious, tungsten-haired geezer in
his SL 63 AMG who drops behind so fast he subsequently
pretends to have been on the phone all along;
the teenage crazies on their scooters who’ll do
anything to snatch a picture, rejoicing with
thumbs-ups and high-fives when they do.
While a supercharged or twin-turbo V-8
can come close in terms of output and torque,
the free-breathing 12 still rules the roost as
far as throttle response, midrange pickup,
and a fearless redline are concerned. It trades
refinement for added raucousness, linearity
for eruption, manners for raw performance.
And although they share some striking sim-
ilarities, the 12-pot unicorns from Maranello
and Sant’Agata Bolognese—like the cars they
propel—are quite different in character.
For reasons known only to the great en-
gineer above the clouds, the displacement
of the two engines is virtually identical save a single cubic
centimeter, with the Ferrari’s 6,469cc edging out the Lambo’s
mill. At 94-by-78 millimeters (Ferrari) and 95-by-76.4, bore
and stroke are not far apart, either. The same applies to their
redlines, where the Superfast eclipses its rival, spinning up to
8,900 rpm against the SVJ’s 8,700 rpm. Thanks to a notably
higher compression ratio, a variable-rate intake and exhaust
system, and a more pronounced willingness to rev, red beats
green at the end of the day, with the car from Maranello reg-
istering 789 hp against Sant’Agata’s 759 hp, though it loses
the torque duel by the narrowest of margins, with the Ferrari
V-12 making 530 lb-ft to the Lamborghini’s 531. Dry weight is
somehow, allegedly, exactly on par at 3,362 pounds.Which one’s quicker, you ask? Lamborghini says the all-
wheel-drive SVJ can launch to 62 mph in 2.8 seconds and
hit 124 mph in just 8.6 seconds, with a claimed top speed in
excess of 219 mph. While the rear-drive Ferrari 812 loses one-
tenth to the Aventador in the 0-62 sprint, it’s 0.7 second ahead
by the time it arrives at the 124-mph marker onto its 211-mph
terminal velocity. How does the Ferrari get to 124 so much
quicker than the SVJ? It’s all due to the Superfast’s seven-
speed dual-clutch transmission, which changes gears without
losing momentum. By contrast, the Aventador is handicapped
by its jerky and slow sequential ISG transmission.