The red Lamborghini Aventador SV, with a black interior, is based in Orange County. It is the least expensive way into a naturally aspirated V12 in our fleet, built for one job, arriving in the loudest and most recognizable Lamborghini color there is. Book it when the V12 and the red paint together are the entire reason for the day.
The V12 is the whole car here, 6.5 liters with no turbochargers anywhere and a redline high enough that you run out of road before the engine runs out of revs. The single clutch gearbox divides opinion in traffic, shifting with a hard physical jolt rather than gliding, and it shuffles rather than slurs at low speed. Point the car up Santiago Canyon Road and that same shift feels like being kicked forward on every upshift, which is the part people who have only driven a modern dual clutch car have never felt. Sixty arrives in 2.8 seconds and the noise at full throttle carries down the canyon well before the car comes into view.
Red on an Aventador is the colour people picture when they imagine the model, and it photographs exactly as expected, which is the point of booking it. Shoot it against the water on the Lido peninsula in the afternoon, where the paint holds its saturation even in flat coastal light. The black interior keeps the cabin from competing once the doors go up. Shoot the doors up and shoot the rear with the engine cover glass visible, since the V12 underneath is part of the story. A low front three quarter gives you the width, which is the thing photographs usually fail to show.
This is the least expensive way into a naturally aspirated V12 in our fleet, fifteen hundred dollars a day under either SVJ. What it gives up against them is the active aerodynamics and roughly twenty horsepower, neither of which you will notice on a public road in Orange County. What it keeps is the engine, the scissor doors and the shape, in the colour most people picture when they hear the word Lamborghini. Our SVJ Coupe runs the same idea in a quieter grey, and our SVJ Roadster runs it with the roof off in white. If the V12 and the red paint together are the entire reason for the day, this is the Aventador to book.
This is the Aventador SV, the Superveloce and the lightest, most stripped down Aventador we run. Standard on the SV is a fixed carbon rear wing, magnetorheological dampers, Lamborghini Dynamic Steering and Pirelli Corsa tyres, without the active aerodynamics or rear wheel steering that the SVJ adds. The cabin is thin carbon bucket seats trimmed in Alcantara, chosen for weight over comfort. Underneath is the 6.5 liter naturally aspirated V12 making 740 hp, sent through the same single clutch gearbox to all four wheels. This car pairs that specification with red paint over a black interior, the most recognizable Aventador colour combination there is.