Lamborghini Reventón vs Tornado Jet Fighter

Motoring Channel Staff - 26/November/2007

Italy, Brescia — We're not sure why Lamborghini decided to race its stunning new Reventón super car against an Tornado jet fighter.

Only 20 Lamborghini Reventóns will ever be built, and all of them are spoken for, so it's not like the Italian car maker needs to advertise it's angrily angular sports car.

But ultimately it's rewarded us with another set of very cool photos.

Both of these vehicles are two seaters, have Italian design input, and travel really fast. 

The aim of this test, according to Lamborghini, was to see which was faster - one of the world's most exclusive exotic sports car or jet-powered military hardware.

To set the scene, Lamborghini's hand picked 'speed' crew travelled to the Ghedi military airport in Brescia where to stage "an extraordinary acceleration race between a Tornado aircraft [A200-A] provided by the airbase, and the Lamborghini Reventón driven by an official Lamborghini test driver".

An Italian airforce fighter pilot challenged Lamborghini's test driver to a race on a 3 kilometer long runway - combustion engine versus jet engine. 

The race was over in under a minute, and for the majority of the runway the Lamborghini Reventón was leading. This suggests that the Italian military should look at using Lamborghini sports car instead of jet fighters to patrol its borders.

While the Lamborghini Reventón took the lead in the first leg of the race, from zero to around 250km/h, the Tornado managed to catch up in the last few metres, "taking off and flying over the Reventón that was going at a speed of over 340 km/h" says Lamborghini.

What can we glean from this exercise? The ultra-rare Lamborghini Reventón is faster than a jet fighter up to almost 300km/h, and the Italian car maker is now clearly making more money than it was in the 1980s now that Audi is pulling the strings, and thusly has a much larger marketing budget to stage amazing tests such as this one.

Lamborghini says the Ghedi military base was chosen as the venue at which to present the Lamborghini super car to international TV networks as it was an "ideal environment in which to emphasise the Reventón’s aeronautic styling". 

For Italian military hierarchy aficionados, we can reveal that the Ghedi military airbase was made available to Lamborghini by General Carlo Landi of the Fifth Department of the Stato Maggiore dell A.M, and Colonel Aurelio of the Sixth Formation.

As one of Italy's rarest sports cars, there are only 20 Lamborghini Reventón cars in the world and are priced at roughly €1,000,000 (A$1,690,000). All 20 of these super fast sports cars have been snapped up by collectors and ex-F1 drivers, and are scheduled to be constructed and delivered in 2008.

Launched at the 2007 Frankfurt Motor Show in September, the Lamborghini Reventón also won the 'Most Beautiful Automobile in the World 2007' award this month in the special models category and "is destined to become a new legend in the fascinating history of the House of the Raging Bull".

Design wise, and the front end of the Lamborghini Reventón features a space-aged 'nose cone', which is flanked by two huge air inlets that help cool the large carbon disc brakes. Almost every line and angle from it's donor car, the Murciélago, has been exaggerated and the angular nature of the design is stunning.

Power for the Lamborghini Reventón comes from a 6.5-litre V12 engine that resides behind the driver. It develops an ungodly 471kW of power (640hp) @ 8000rpm. Peak torque of 660Nm propels the all-wheel drive Lamborghini Reventon from zero to 100km/h in 3.4 seconds, while a top speed of more than 340km/h is possible.

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