Big Bulls

How do you celebrate a centenary? A trip to the bingo hall? A nice cup of tea with some cake? Not if you’re Lamborghini, you don’t. You make your maddest car even madder.

- Charlie Turner

It’s 6am, and the mercury is already heading rapidly north at Nardò, VW Group’s top-secret test facility on the heel of Italy. After multiple security checks of increasing ferocity, we’re finally into the inner sanctum and staring at the reason for all the secrecy: the Lamborghini Centenario. Hunkered down on the tarmac, it’s a monument to carbonfibre precision that would rival any modernist sculpture on its visual merits. Except, in this case, your appreciation of its stunning lines is disturbed by thoughts of its brutish potential.

The Centenario is Lamborghini’s posthumous birthday present to its legendary founder Ferruccio Lamborghini, who would have been 100 this year. But it represents more than a nod to the old man – it’s the most recent in a chain of jaw-dropping motor-show unicorns that started with the Reventón, then punctuated the last decade with highlights including the Aventador J, Sesto Elemento, Estoque and Veneno. More poignantly, it was the last car presented by Stephan Winkelmann at the Geneva show, following the announcement of his sudden departure to quattro GmbH and the appointment of Stefano Domenicali in his place. It is, then, an automotive baton for a company under new leadership, a touch point for what went before, but also an articulation of Lamborghini’s future direction. Sticking to the brief of its forebears, the Centenario is strictly limited production – only 40 will be made: 20 coupés, and 20 roadsters.