Although the Lamborghini Essenza SCV12 makes 818 hp (830 PS/609 kW) and can lap a track faster than a Huracan GT3, it’s not as scary as its performance figures might suggest.
Although the Essenza SCV12 will never race in a series, all of its technology, safety, and performance were developed for the track. The result, reports EVO’s Steve Sutcliffe, is a car that is just wonderful.
“It’s just the conventional stuff that this car does so well that freaks you out, though,” he explains. “In short, it goes like [explitive] in a straight line and it stops like a – it stops rather well. I think, if anything, it stops better than it goes. That’s always the way with stuff like this. I keep wanting to call it a racecar. It is not a racecar. It is not a racecar. It is a racecar.”
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Despite that performance, though, it’s not a very difficult thing to drive. The brakes, for instance, are made of steel. Sure, Lamborghini will give you carbon ceramics if you want them, but they recommend getting the steel ones because they lasts longer and the way they heat up and cool down is more forgiving.
“There are no sharp edges to anything this thing is doing on the move,” says Sutcliffe. “It does not feel like it wants to bite you, at all. It’s friendly, it’s useable, it’s epically quick. It looks the business, too.”
To Sutcliffe, the Essenza SCV12 is a peak, a beautiful send-off for the old-school machines, the contraptions that are motorcars. A beautifully essential and mechanical car that’s a fitting goodbye to the un-aided naturally aspirated V12.