Everyone knows Lamborghinis aren’t exactly the cheapest cars on the planet, but when the Italian company released their 50th Anniversary creation in 2013 – the Veneno Roadster – its outrageous looks came at an outrageous price – the cool £3.36M needed to secure this lunatic of machine earned it the ‘World’s Most Expensive Car’ title.
So why does the Lamborghini Veneno Roadster cost so much?
Before I explain, here are a few stats to put this staggering price tag into context:
For the price of one Lamborghini Veneno Roadster you could buy three Bugatti Veyrons, 10 Lamborghini Aventadors or 20 Ferrari 458 Italias. If you had a Jeno Leno-sized garage you could house 560 Dacia Sanderos or 355 Ford Fiestas.
Performance takes up one slice of the £3.36M pie with some impressive numbers:
Engine: 6.5-L V12, thumping out 750-bhp. This engine received enlarged intake paths, optimized thermodynamics, and a custom exhaust producing lower backpressure.
0-62-mph comes in at under three seconds (2.9), and the Veneno will carry on eating tarmac until it hits 220-mph. The Veneno is also 275-lbs lighter than the Aventador – for a monster of car with a monster of an engine, the Veneno only tips the scales at 1,490-kg, around that of a VW Golf.
Design, function, exotic materials and exclusivity take up the remainder of the money pie. With only nine examples being built, Lamborghini called their Veneno Roadster ‘one of the most exceptional super sports cars of all time’. They also claim every minuscule detail of the body has been designed to optimise downforce and give it the drag coefficient of a lycra-clad eel.
Although the designer clearly had a thing for Y shapes and pointy arrows the day he sat down and to draw the Veneno, the headlights, tail lights, and the carbon-fibre fin running along its spine aren’t just for show – along with the body, these aerodynamic snippets of art only enhance the Veneno’s capabilities in defying Sir Isaac Newton of everything he worked for.
Acres more carbon-fibre can be found jutting out of the body’s lower fascia with its ‘ground-effects package’. This aero package splits at the rear wheel to give the wide arch a separate feel over the main body. Lamborghini also pay homage to their all-time heavy weight here – remember The Countach and its canted fender openings? The lines paint a picture of force, air pressure and mind-warping speed.
Because the Veneno Roadster’s interior (including seats and dash), brakes, shell and chassis are all forged from carbon-fibre, it pretty much means the entire car is made from the stuff. High-grade carbon-fibre isn’t cheap, and when you throw its beautiful wheels into the mix and the fact the carbon ring running around the rims is purpose built as a tuning function, you can see why this big car costs big but weighs in small.
The Veneno even has an expensive looking behind, the kind J.Lo or Kim Kardashian wouldn’t think twice about insuring – it really doesn’t have any right being that big yet so light.
So you can see why the Veneno is so expensive. It’s a football pitch-sized piece of carbon-fibre placed in the hands of an Italian origami expert. It’s extreme design and awe-inspiring performance is the epitome of form benefitting function.