Add the word “super” to anything and, usually, it’s immediately rendered untouchable and unattainable. You may have dated a model in your murky past; but a supermodel? In your dreams. You may have spent quality time with someone you deem to be a star; but a superstar? Unlikely. And while you’ve undoubtedly owned or at least driven a car, have you really got to grips with a bona fide supercar?

That term has become almost redundant these days because performance that used to be the preserve of crazy looking Italian exotica is now the norm with staid, ordinary looking German saloon cars. Put a new BMW M5 at the lights next to a Lamborghini Countach or a Ferrari Testarossa and watch as the Italian’s occupants cry into their laps as the German technofeast obliterates the glamorous competition.

Perhaps that’s an unfair analogy because time moves on. But no matter what period in time you think of from the mid 1960s, Lamborghini has always been out there, pushing the envelope with outrageous, gloriously impractical sex machines that cause more heads to turn than a streaker running through downtown. Time has done nothing to tone down the madness and the latest big Lambo, the Aventador, carries the tradition of bonkers bulls into a new era. It isn’t a supercar, it’s a hypercar.

Even before you get in it, ignite the twelve cylinders and unleash hell, it sends a mighty shock through your system. It’s a completely mad looking thing yet study it closely and you won’t find a single awkward line. As visual statements of intent go, it’s a masterpiece – aggressive yet beautiful, simple and uncluttered, it shouts “look at me” without being flash. “We’re the only bad boys left,” one of Lambo’s top brass recently said within earshot. He wasn’t kidding – the company formed to teach Enzo Ferrari a thing or two has, with this car, just made the 599 look like a Mini Cooper.

It’s entirely new, as well. Not a single component has been carried over from the outgoing Murcielago, who’s V12 could trace its roots back as far as 1963. And Lamborghini’s current fetish for carbonfibre means the Aventador is made using a CF monocoque, meaning it’s extremely rigid and there’s F1-style pushrod suspension, too. No Lamborghini in history has been this advanced. And then there’s the engine: twelve cylinders in vee formation is a given, as is four-wheel drive, but there’s no fewer than 700 horsepower waiting, with pent-up frustration, to be liberated. So we do what you would do, given half the chance. We take it to the open roads that nestle within the jagged mountains surrounding Hatta, so we can see just how bad-ass this bad boy really is.

The urban crawl is a pain because the Aventador is always trying to break free of its constraints. The clutchless, seven-speed manual tranny feels jerky and recalcitrant at low speeds and the entire car feels extremely heavy and cumbersome. But once we’re clear of the moronic masses, this thoroughbred monster takes our preconceptions and smashes them into a million dusty fragments. Getting onto an arrow-straight stretch of road that’s free of cameras, cars and camels, with seemingly endless visibility, we select Sport mode, knock it into second, flatten the loud pedal and hope we remembered to pack a spare pair of shorts.

The revs shoot for the sky, the soundtrack becomes an opera of epic violence, filling the cabin with a deafening roar, like it’s a lion that’s just slammed a drawer shut on his danglies. The LED speedo piles on numbers so rapidly it isn’t worth looking at, as each upshift results in a vicious thump in the back before the Aventador tears toward the horizon. Can’t see anything through the rear window because the spoiler has long since raised itself to keep the car’s huge bottom planted on the road and what’s ahead has become a total blur.

Fortunately, even at speeds that threaten to cause our licence to spontaneously combust, the Lambo feels totally keyed in to the hot tarmac and is sending information aplenty through our palms and buttocks, which are firmly clenched as you might imagine. But then, when the fun seems like it might never end, we hit a bend and the sheer physical mass of this mentalist cannot be disguised. We know the power is being put down through all four tyres but it’s not enough to give us the confidence to keep the throttle nailed. Lifting off the gas, just a tad, causes weight to shift and pulses to sharply rise. Suddenly it feels nervous, jittery and quite deadly. We need to lie down for a bit.

Hard on the brakes, the big bull wipes off speed almost as rapidly as it piles it on. Doors up, we climb out and try to get our heads around what we’ve just experienced in a fleeting few minutes. The speed warps time, the noise is intoxicating and the entire feel of the car is one of precision engineering. It’s a four-wheeled contradiction – wild yet usable, focused yet comfortable, friendly yet deadly. And that’s exactly what a V12 Lambo should be. It should perplex and delight in equal measure and, to that end, the Avetador exceeds expectations and puts it on a level beyond practically any other road car.

It’s obvious we need more seat time so we can explore its limits, which are always going to be higher than ours, we admit. It’s a car that will take months, if not years, to fully appreciate, and it will need lots and lots of space to enjoy. And, when you’re dropping at least AED1.2million on a car, you don’t want it to be an open book, do you? You want to learn its ways over time, to gel with it, to have a meaningful relationship.

The Aventador is an acquired taste, there’s no getting away from that, but Lamborghini should be incredibly proud of it. It’s markedly better than the car it replaces in every sense and is more visually arresting than any Lambo since the Countach blew everyone away in 1974. It’s difficult to know how they’ll follow this but we know they will. When the SV inevitably shows up, we’ll probably faint just by looking at it. And yes, that’s a good thing. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we still have half a tank of fuel to get through. It was nice knowing you.

Lamborghin Aventador

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