Review: Lamborghini Joins the 1,000-Horsepower Club With the Revuelto

One thousand and one. It’s just a number, but today it’s a number that scares me, as that’s the horsepower of the car I’m test driving: the new Lamborghini Revuelto. I’ve barely pressed the start-stop button and I’m shaking. The child inside me is excited by the absurdity of this vehicle, the storied Italian marque’s most powerful ever, but the part of my brain that’s focused on self-preservation is scheming a plan to keep that kid from taking over.

Now, I’m generally not afraid of supercars. Hopping behind the wheel of a vintage Ferrari or an irreplaceable historic Mercedes is a fun day at the office. Ripping up roads or taking hot laps in the latest offerings from Aston or Maserati is part of the gig — the best part, obviously. I’m also quite familiar with most contemporary Lamborghinis. But there’s something about a four-figure horsepower rating that has me a little unnerved.

Vehicle2024 Lamborghini Revuelto

Starting Price$608,358

Price of Model Tested$675,656

Vehicle TypePlug-in hybrid coupe

Engine6.5-liter V12 + 3 AC electric motors, 1,001 hp and 793 lb-ft of torque

Fuel Economy10 city, 17 highway, 12 combined

AvailabilityOrders full until 2026

For the sake of comparison, the Porsche 911 GT3 RS offers “only” 518 hp and the fully electric Maserati GranCabrio Folgore throws down 818 — the most my right foot has had the pleasure of pushing so far. To be sure, there are hypercars with more power, but a thousand ponies sounds like a number an announcer would bellow out when I was at a late-‘80s drag race, right before some guy spun it off the track and into flames.

As I gather my wits and get ready to attack some roads in Upstate New York, I remind myself to respect the power and be judicious. Get on the throttle too early out of a corner and I could end up like that poor sap at the drag race.

The Most Powerful Lamborghini Ever

The Revuelto became Lamborghini’s most powerful car ever thanks to its status as the company’s first plug-in hybrid. Its L545 6.5-liter V12 mid-mounted internal combustion engine, which is also new for this model, produces 814 horsepower on its own, but bolstered by three electric motors, the total output is cranked to 1,001 hp and 793 lb-ft of torque.

How big of a deal are those numbers? Consider that Sant’Agata Bolognese’s final naturally aspirated V12, as deployed in the Aventador LP 780-4 Ultimae, boasted 769 hp and 531 lb-ft of torque. Those are objectively insane numbers, but they pale in comparison to the Revuelto, which has now replaced the Aventador as the automaker’s flagship production model.

All that thunder shoots the new hybrid from 0 to 62 mph in only 2.5 seconds and all the way to 124 mph in under seven. Top speed is somewhere north of 217 mph, but you’re going to need to find a track with a helluva straightaway to max that out.

The electric motors in the Revuelto are powered by a lithium-ion battery with pouch cells that pack a capacity of 3.8 kWh. The cells are deployed in what would be the transmission tunnel, and they allow the car to go full EV with all-wheel drive for about six miles. But with regenerative braking and negative torque (generated as you lift off the throttle) juicing the battery back up, it’s seemingly never depleted in normal driving modes and always ready to keep the low-end torque up. According to Lamborghini, the new hybrid system also brings down that new V12’s CO2 emissions by 30%, but really, the power is the point here.

Excessive Horsepower, Easy Driving

The V12 doesn’t come alive until the engine has sufficiently warmed, so I glide out of Wildflower Farms — the resort in Gardiner, New York, where our drive begins — in Città mode (Italian for “city”), the Revuelto’s fully electric setting. As I approach the main road, I toggle a selector on the steering wheel to Strada (street mode) and the twelve pack of flamethrowers ignite.

Flip the Revuelto into Sport and, as anyone who has driven a sports car in the last decade knows, the driving dynamics sharpen. Corsa, or track mode, pushes the experience to the limit. But the drive settings don’t stop there: You can also choose between two suspension settings, hard and soft; and for the truly insane, there’s a switch to turn the electronic stability controls off, but that’s best left for closed courses. Mostly, I handle the Ulster County roads manually shifting in Sport and Corsa to treat myself to the V12’s song, since it’s barely audible under 3,500 rpm — but push the throttle beyond and its engine begins to howl.

There’s an abundance of torque through nearly the entirety of the power band. At its 9,400-rpm redline, the Revuelto grabs your ear drums and injects you with a massive dose of adrenaline, but you’ll be approaching triple-digit speeds before you shift into third gear. So you best show a bit of temperance and a touch of moderation when you decide to use all this Lamborghini’s might.

Despite the raw power that raised my hackles upon starting the engine, on the road the Revuelto is astonishingly easy to drive, really not that scary at all — unless you’re going full throttle. While Italian supercars of old punished poor driver inputs in an often spectacular and catastrophic fashion, the new generation is much more forgiving. Compared to the Aventador, the Revuelto feels lighter, sharper and more nimble, despite the fact that it’s four inches longer and beefier by more than 600 pounds.

The engineering team chalks that up to advancements in software and state-of-the-art torque vectoring. Come into a corner a little too hot and the Revuelto doesn’t mind, there’s just so much grip — you’d have to be wildly out of control to lose the line. Get on the power a little too soon coming out of a twist and you’ll feel a touch of oversteer, but it snaps back quickly. To my surprise, there were no moments where I was scared behind the wheel or, more importantly, the pedal. In every drive mode the power is fluid, predictable and easily managed. Sure, 1,001 hp sounds excessive, but in this car, it feels absolutely reasonable as long as you prove yourself worthy and don’t abuse it…too much.

The carbon-ceramic brakes bite hard when asked, with 16.1-inch rotors and 10-piston calipers in the front and 15.4-inch rotors with four pistons in the back. While the Aventador’s transmission was a bit clunky by contemporary standards, the Revuelto’s in-house, compact eight-speed dual-clutch transmission is lighting in a gearbox. It also offers a new feature called “continuous downshifting”: Hold the left paddle while braking and the transmission can downshift multiple gears seamlessly to match the revs. Pretty wild. In automatic, the system has a tendency to upshift too soon if you’re not aggro-ing the throttle, but that’s a fuel economy bias I’ve found in nearly the entirety of the current Lamborghini range (though I have yet to drive the Huracán Sterrato and the Urus SE).

Obviously adding batteries and e-motors adds weight, so the engineers developed a new carbon monocoque and frame using Lamborghini’s patented forged composite. The engine and transmission are supported by high-strength aluminum, but in total the chassis is 10% lighter and 25% stiffer than the Aventador.

Welcome to the Electrified Era

Yes, every exterior cue is obviously Lamborghini: a flying wedge ready to melt some asphalt. But as good as the Revuelto looks in pictures or on the curb, the best angle might just be from the rearview mirror of another low-slung sports car. From that vantage point, the design says, “If I feel like it, I’ll blow your doors clean off.” And remember, the razor-sharp looks aren’t just about aesthetics — the signature exterior flourishes improve aerodynamic efficiency by 61% and downforce by 66% compared to the Aventador.

The design team took advantage of the longer wheelbase, adding an extra inch of extra room in every direction. That may not sound like much, but in a sports car that sits lower than most SUV license plate holders, they may as well have added a foot. There’s now more leg room to create a more comfortable driving position, more head space to accommodate a helmet on track days, and there’s even a bit of real estate behind the seats to store a bag or two.

Lamborghini aims to crank out around 1,500 Revueltos annually, which may seem like a big number for this particular supercar maker, but they are all spoken for until at least 2026. So if you can afford the starting price of $608,000, best get on the list sooner rather than later.

Sure, 1,001 horsepower is more than one could ever need on a public thoroughfare, but that shouldn’t stop anyone lucky enough for an allocation to drive it early and often. Hopefully they don’t let all that power go to their head.