Lamborghini Aventador J at 2012 Geneva motor show

 

There maybe other Italian sports car manufacturers looking to hog the limelight at the 2012 Geneva motor show (and Ferrari and its 730bhp F12 is one of them) but Lamborghini will vie for attention with the Aventador J. A two-seat, open top speedster based on the Aventador LP700-4, it has some intriguing bits of carbonfibre tech and highly individual design.

Named 'J' after the FIA’s Appendix J that governs the tech spec of race cars in certain classes, it’s proper bedroom wall material – but little boys and girls are unlikely to ever see it on the road as it’s a one-off and will go to a lucky owner after its appearance at Geneva.


Ker-pow! The Lamborghini Aventador J is a little bit KTM X-bow meets Gotham City isn’t it?

To the Batmobile… let’s go! Yep, the Aventador J is a riot of polygons with a sharp, sweeping crease like an artist’s French curve extending from below the A-pillar (if there was one, because there are no pillars) through to the rear.

And it’s not just the roof and pillars that the Aventador has been relieved of, as there is no windscreen either… unless you count a tiddly pair of wind deflectors as a windscreen. Side windows are fixed and are so small they are almost imperceptible.

What’s all this carbonfibre cleverness, then?

A brand new monocoque has been developed for the J, with two new safety bars behind the seats. This, combined with no roof, no traditional windscreen, no air con and no sat-nav means total weight is down to 1575kg.

The other bits of canny carbonfibre trickery include a new material developed by Automobili Lamborghini called Carbonskin. It’s a woven carbonfibre fabric soaked with an epoxy resin that helps keep the material soft but stable. It’s been shaped to the entire cockpit and has inserts in the seats. Lamborghini thinks it could end up in clothing. Very expensive clothing, no doubt.

The rest of the seats are made the same composites seen in the Sesto Elemento concept car shown at the 2010 Paris motor show. If you’re a golfer and have Calloway Diablo Octane ‘woods’, it’s the same material used by the American golf club manufacturer, who jointly developed it with Lamborghini. So, you can now take both for a drive. Sorry. Had to do that.