The Lamborghini Aventador won’t be produced as a rear-wheel-drive model, despite the Italian company producing such a version of its less-powerful sibling, the Huracan.
Whereas the new entry-level version of the Huracan has 572bhp and 397lb ft, the least powerful version of the Aventador possesses 690bhp and 507lb ft. Lamborghini chiefs are adamant that four-wheel drive is a necessity to effectively harness the Aventador’s power.
Research and development director Maurizio Reggiani said: “The Aventador can only be four-wheel drive because we have so much power and torque to manage; only with four driven wheels are you able to manage this.
“This is mainly due to the state of the art of the control systems that we have on the car today. So when we plan Aventador derivatives, we maintain four-wheel drive.
“With the Huracan from the beginning, when we were looking at computer simulations and so on, we decided that two-wheel drive was possible without any kind of problem.”
Some independent tuning companies have in the past offered their own rear-drive conversions of the Aventador in small numbers.
Lamborghini is also lukewarm about the idea of a rear-wheel-drive variant of its forthcoming Urus SUV. Company boss Stephan Winkelmann felt that such a car would be a “lookalike” 4x4, lacking the authentic off-road capability desired by typical Lamborghini owners.
Read Autocar's review of the rear-wheel drive Lamborghini Huracan LP580-2
