The "jet fighter for the street" concept has been around since the late 1970s, the ill-fated, never really worked Vector being the most obvious attempt. Three decades later it has finally arrived, thanks to Lamborghini.
The otherworldly Reventon is named after a particularly feisty fighting bull. With just 20 production cars to be made (11 coming to the U.S.), it'll be Lamborghini's most exclusive road car ever. Other "mosts" include price ($1.4-plus million at current exchange rates), and speed (210-plus mph).

The main inspiration for this most arresting of automotive shapes was the F22 Raptor. Well, duh! Manfred Fitzgerald, Lamborghini's director of brand and design and the man who's carefully guided the company's resurgence over the past decade, was at a European NATO base with his design team.

"We had a good contact with the base manager (and) sat in Tornados and different aircraft to get some inspiration," Fitzgerald says. "We took these impressions of their world and came back here [to Lamborghini's Centro Stile design center]. Then we went, 'What is the most impressive aircraft to date?' For us it was the F-22, the Raptor. It is an incredible piece of art as well. This sort of kicked it off. Everyone on the team had a go at it and we then selected one (proposal) from the competition."

Viewing the car outdoors makes the stealth-driven inspiration all the more obvious. Looking straight out of Area 51, sunlight dances off the sharp edged angles, creases and character lines that dominate the design and its details. If a picture is worth a thousand words, you could triple that count and not fully cover what the Centro Stile team created.

Like its 12-cylinder predecessors, the Reventon's doors open upward. After depressing the flush-fitting door handle on the door's upward-facing edge just below the window, you slide under the low-slung roofline into a deep, tight-fitting, very supportive bucket seat. With the seat all the way back, it's clear that linebackers, power forwards, and centers from either sport were not the design brief's target audience.

The interior is subdued and tastefully appointed with a mix of carbon, aluminum, Alcantara, and leather. The flat-bottom steering wheel is thick and nice to grip. Just behind it are the requisite E-gear up- and downshift paddles, although we're having a difficult time finding the switch for the afterburners...

The instrument binnacle is a housing milled from a single aluminum block that's then protected by a carbon-fiber casing. The instrument cluster looks lifted from some stealth aircraft and is different from that found on any production car. In place of conventional gauges are three TFT liquid crystal displays that can be modified at the touch of a button.

One setting features a "traditional" automotive layout with round analog instruments. The second is more in line with the Reventon's exterior and is innovative in the way it informs the driver of engine functions and speed. The left display has a tachometer of two inward-pointing lines that rise upward in unison as the revs increase. To its right is a large, digital speedometer. The small center gauge has a g-force meter, and supplemental gauges and other readouts are placed in the tachometer and speedometer nacelles.

This flat-screen instrument panel will keep any pilot or gadget geek smiling for weeks, and the overall effect is so impressive, so intuitively legible, that it's easy to see the concept starting a new trend in dash design where owners can scroll through variants to find their preferred configuration.


Lamborghini Reventon - Exclusive First Drive - Motor Trend

Damn cool looking car.. just imagene the reaction you get from ppl when you roll up in one of these bastards.. .LOL

This thing looks like it's from space.

I realy don't like it,looks like an aftermarket crap at SEMA

I hate the price, but if I were rich I still think it is a must-have. The look alone sets it apart on the road.



M

I'd really like to know who has bought one of these.

M