Brutal in every way imaginable

So, you think the Huracan is a bit of softie, then. Ah, you’re one of those purist types that think the only engine a Lamborghini should come with is a screaming V12 and with a chassis that will put hairs on your chest.

Well then, you’ll most definitely want the Lamborghini Aventador, a car that arguably is the last of the old school Lamborghinis (read: manic and doesn’t at all suffer fools gladly). But this isn’t just any Aventador, it’s the SVJ, which is the Aventador taken to its logical extreme.

It’s the Aventador put on a crash diet and a course of performance-enhancing drugs.

And given it’s the Aventador taken to its logical extreme, so too are its foibles. Even just getting in/out of it involves heaving yourself across the wide sills into the fixed-back bucket seats, all-round visibility is shall we say compromised and its semi-automatic gearbox really doesn’t like crawling in traffic.

And that’s if you’re lucky enough to own one, because Lamborghini made just 900 of them, and at the time of this writing, it’s more than likely all 900 have already been spoken for. And that’s assuming you were willing to hand over to Lamborghini the 25 percent premium it wants for the SVJ over the Aventador S’ $1.5 million.

In return, assuming you were lucky enough to lay your hands on, and were willing enough to pay for one, is a car that Lamborghini will never make again. And we mean that in the wider sense, not just the SVJ in particular.

You see, the SVJ will put hairs on your chest because it’s properly hairy. Its 6.5-litre V12 produces 770hp, the terror of which should be tempered somewhat by the traction of all-wheel-drive, but the SVJ somehow conspires to make you feel like you’re never fully in control of the car.

Which is not the sort of feeling you’d really want to have in a car with this much power, that costs this much and is this rare.

It’s the antithesis of any other Lamborghini in the range, be it the Huracan or the Urus, which are about as friendly and forgiving as they come. Rightly so, the SVJ, and to an extent the ‘regular’ Aventador, is a car that scares and thrills in equal measure.

Future generations will look upon the SVJ and see it for what it is – a throwback to a time when supercars were borderline homicidal and had huge naturally-aspirated V12s. Much in the same way that dinosaurs reached their apex just before the meteor hit, the SVJ is the Aventador at the very top of its game, the last of its kind and a fitting send-off to a very, very glorious era.

PRICE: $POA

GO: Obscenely quick and with the looks to match

NO GO: Are ya feelin’ lucky, punk?