"Few-Off" Lamborghini Fenomeno Is The Most Powerful V-12 Lambo Ever
Best get yourself to this year’s Quail, because you might otherwise never see one of the 30 Lambo will ever build.
It’s been twenty years since Lamborghini opened its Centro Stile design center, which introduced its first limited-run car, the Reventon, in 2007. Several models followed—Sesto Elemento, Veneno, Centenario, Sián and (2021) Countach—and this year’s Quail, a bougie car show tied to Monterey Car Week, will see the latest of what Lamborghini calls a “few-off,” the Fenomeno.
0:00 / 0:00
How few? Lambo plans to build 30 copies, all featuring the most powerful V-12 powertrain in the company’s 62-year history.
The Fenomeno—that’s Italian for “Phenomenon” and, like many Lambos, is the name of a famous fighting bull—is based on the bones of the Revuelto, Lamborghini’s plug-in hybrid supercar. But while the wheelbase is unchanged from the Revuelto, the track is wider by 0.8 inch and the styling, as you can see, is quite a departure. Lamborghini calls this a “design manifesto,” a car that shows the extremes of Lambo’s design DNA. The Fenomeno makes skilled use of its two-tone color scheme, with sculpted elements done in yellow and the more aerodynamically functional components in black.
The reskin continues inside. As Centrol Stile director Mitja Borkert explained to MotorTrend, “A Lamborghini looks sort of [like a] space ship on the outside, and inside I would find an alien. This is, for me, the alien part.”
The cabin certainly looks like a place from which a Martian might pilot the Fenomeno, with “alien eye” ambient lighting, unique 3-D printed vents, carbon-fiber door panels, and specially designed monoshell racing seats. Customers can customize both interior and exterior color and trim through Lamborghini’s Ad Personam bespoke-build program.
For power, the Fenomeno employs a juiced-up version of the Revuelto’s PHEV powertrain, built around a 6.5-liter V-12 engine. Here, that twelve is tuned for 823 hp (at 9,250 rpm!) and 535 lb-ft, a 9-hp bump over the standard setup with no change in torque. Like the Revuelto, the Fenomeno uses a trio of electric motors, two driving the front axle and one working on the transaxle, delivering a total of 242 hp. Total system output, including the V-12’s effort, is 1,065 hp, a 64-hp increase over the Revuelto. Incidentally, that gives the Fenomeno the highest power-to-weight ratio of any Lamborghini in the company’s history, at just under 5.4 lb/hp.
Lamborghini is estimating a 0-100 km/h (62 mph) time of 2.4 seconds and 0-124 mph in 6.7 seconds, with a top speed in excess of 217 mph (350 km/h). We have yet to test a Revuelto, let alone a Fenomeno, so we don’t know if it will out-perform those numbers, but given the wacky stats, those estimates seem conservative.
Naturally, Lamborghini does not expect the souped-up powertrain to do all the heavy lifting. The Fenomeno gets what Lamborghini calls a “sport-tuned suspension”—one struggles to imagine the changes compared to the already-phenomenal Revuelto—with adjustable racing shocks. The car is drawn down from speed by Lambo’s CCM-R Plus carbon-ceramic braking system, using technology drawn from the company’s racing experience.
Again, Lamborghini will build just 30 Fenomenos, one of which will go straight to Lamborghini’s own collection with the other 29 wavailable to customers. Price? Are you sitting down? We expected a significant premium over the Revuelto’s $610,000-or-so starting price, but even we were a bit bowled over by what Lamborghini told us: The Fenomeno will start at $3.5 million. Lambo fans, it might be time to ask your manager for a little overtime.
After a two-decade career as a freelance writer, Aaron Gold joined MotorTrend’s sister publication Automobile in 2018 before moving to the MT staff in 2021. Aaron is a native New Yorker who now lives in Los Angeles with his spouse, too many pets, and a cantankerous 1983 GMC Suburban.
Read More
