Lamborghini Aventador - Car Design News

Lamborghini Aventador - Car Design News 

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Design Development: Lamborghini Aventador 

by Owen Ready 24 May 2011 

Aventador broke cover at Geneva 2011. Click for larger images 

Brief called for Lamborghini to do something 'very extreme' with the car 

Bold designs are expressive of the 'quantum leap change' 

http://www.cardesignnews.com/site/home/design_development/display/store4/item230615/[27/2/2012 8:46:45] 

On one hand, the design team responsible 

for the Lamborghini Aventador had a dream 

task – to design an exotic Italian supercar is 

the stuff of childhood dreams. Yet the fact 

that decades are, for many, defined by each 

generation of V12-powered Lamborghini 

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adds a huge weight onto shoulders of the 

people involved. We caught up with one of 

those – Filippo Perini, Head of Centro Stile Lamborghini – to discover the 

Aventador's back story. 

The project took three and a half years 

from conception to delivery: "remember 

that this was a really long process – we 

did a lot of proposals, a lot of sketches 

and 1:4 and full-scale models – it was a 

very big job in order for us to reach the 

right design," explains Perini. 

"The brief was very, very simple 

because it's a supercar and we were 

asked to do something very extreme 

and advanced and find a design that is 

a valuable step into a new generation – 

a kind of quantum leap change," he 

enthuses. This 'new generation' alludes 

to the fact the Aventador is not simply 

an evolution of the lineage of the 

Countach, Diablo and Murcielago, but of 

a complete step-change in both the 

construction method and design 

process employed for the new car. 

An exotic carbon-fiber tub replaces the 

aluminum and steel structures the 

company has used since its inception. 

But, perhaps more interestingly, the 

digital, networked design process is also 

a first for a production car, hyperexperimental 

Reventon notwithstanding. 

"This is the first car that is built in the 

group without any kind of manual 

model," explains Perini. "We have a 

very innovative process in our studio 

where the designers are directly 

involved in the production of surfaces by 

using Alias so there are no filters 

between us and the model. It's been 

four years since we put any kind of tape 

on the models and all the production 

and concept cars you have seen in the 

last five years are made in this way." 

While it may seem like a bold move for 

a brand that is defined by tactility, Perini 

is insistent it's absolutely the right way 

for Lamborghini to work and that all 

future cars will be designed in this way. 

Home > Design Development > Lamborghini Aventador 

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Illustrious time-line of the Lamborghini V12


© 2012 Car Design News Ltd 

CAD models showing variations in the Aventadors development 

Aventador proposals show Reventon influences 

Other 1/4 scale model proposals 

One of the biggest factors is the 

requirement of Lamborghini to meet the 

exacting A-class surfacing standards set 

by Audi – no mean feat for such a small 

design team: "The advantage is that a 

designer with a laptop worth less than 

€1,000 can build a proposal in 10 days 

that can win the [internal] contest with a 

company this is 100 times bigger than 

us." Perini and his all-Italian design 

team were involved in a multi-studio 

competition for the Aventador's design 

although with whom it's not clear. Audi 

and Italdesign Giugiaro perhaps? 

But what of the true, sleeves rolled-up 

design effort that went into the car? 

While some – including CDN – have 

suggested the Aventador is, visually, a 

refinement of the Murcielago and 

Reventon formula, Perini is adamant 

that "if you see the details and the 

approach and philosophy, they're totally 

different." 

It's true that the closer you get to the 

car, the more it has to offer: while from a 

distance it looks elegant, calm even on 

a macro level, as you walk up to and 

around its broad, low and long forms, 

the level of design sophistication 

becomes apparent. 


The closer you get to the Aventador, the more 

the design sophistication becomes apparent 

Aeronautics, nature and minerals drove the 

inspiration 

A-class surfacing standards where set by 

Audi 

"I was talking to my designers at the 

start of the project to tell them to 

interpret each detail in a different way 

because we are used to having a kind 

of common approach for each aspect, for example the wheels or the lamps and I 

said then, 'please, every detail has to be made in a different way.'" Perini 

highlights the fuel filler cap as an example – its hexagonal shape was initially 

dismissed by engineers but, because of his design team's intimate relationship 

with the car, they were able to fight their corner. 

Continues → 

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Design Development: Lamborghini Aventador 

Color and trim design by Luca Reggiani reflects the mixture of 

sophistication, expense and drama of the whole car. Click for larger 

images 

Clay buck of the Aventador interior 

Interior emphasis is also on clear architecture and beautifully resolved 

surfacing 

“When you see the car you can appreciate the level of quality in the 

interior,” says Perini 

“We were driven by aeronautics, by nature, 

by minerals – we found inspiration in crystals 

and this was very, very interesting.” They 

may sound like mood board clichés, but the 

car's surfacing rings true of these sources of 

inspiration, with the complex interplay of 

surface and volume. 


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“I was trying with my guys to fix a very clean volume and if you take the car from a 

distance you can see the volumes are very clean...but, when you get closer to the 

car, you can see the details are very complicated. At the front there is a kind of 

random intersection of volumes and the inspiration from these small corners 

comes from crystals. 

“At the moment I'm very, very interested 

about how the photographers are 

interacting with the volumes of the car 

because I'm starting to see very 

beautiful pictures. These guys are now 

able to speak with the language of the 

car and it's amazing for me to see how 

many different pictures there are now in 

the magazines. It's wonderful for me.” 

The final design by Alessandro 

Salvagnin was chosen from three 

proposals, all created via 3D prints of 

the designers' Alias data. “If you look at 

the silhouette – the Y0 [center line] of 

the car is very simple and all these 

models were made in the same way 

and this is a big constraint. Some 

proposals were a little bit less extreme – 

we chose the most advanced.” 

The interior design, headed by Michele 

Tinazzo followed a similar process to 

that of the interior, with an emphasis on 

clear architecture and beautifully 

resolved surfacing, again to Audi 

standards. “When you see the car you 

can appreciate the level of quality in the 

interior,” says Perini and we wouldn't 

argue with his sentiments. The color 

and trim design by Luca Reggiani 

reflects the mixture of sophistication, 

expense and drama of the whole car, 

which was brought together by 

Alessandro Serra, the man responsible 

for the Aventador project. 

Being part of the Volkswagen Group not 

only means Lamborghini has had to 

seriously increase the standard of its 

design resolution, but that Perini himself 

must also answer to Walter de'Silva, the 

Group's design director. So how did the 

relationship work? 

Home > Design Development > Lamborghini Aventador 

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Above and below, are varying dial binnacle 

layouts 

Montage of the interior development clay 

Design resolution was stringently increased 

under Audi's ownership


CAD model follows same A-Class surfacing expectations as the exterior 

Finished product, as seen at Geneva, exudes the Audi quality Lamborghini 

strove for 

© 2012 Car Design News Ltd 


“Fortunately I started my career as a 

designer with him in Alfa Romeo so I'm 

very lucky and we work in an easy way. 

We always have the opportunity to 

prepare our proposals without any kind 

of interference before we present to Mr 

de'Silva and to Mr Winterkorn 

[Volkswagen Group CEO]. De'Silva is 

always taking care of us with a kind of 

'survival kit', we need to be different 

[within the group]. He's a kind of engine behind design because he's always 

pushing us to the limit and sometimes – through this kind of positive competition – 

he is always able to force us to overtake our limits and this is very beautiful.” 

It would be easy to dismiss Lamborghini's success and design quality as it simply 

becoming absorbed into the wider VW Group. While the stringent quality and 

attention detail is bourn of its time under the Audi Design Group and now the wider 

VW Group, it is still a very small, staunchly individual company rather than a 

manufacturer of fast Audis as some would have you believe. 

“When you see the picture of Feruccio [Lamborghini, the company's founder], 

pictures of the Miura, the Countach – these are icons for me and are so important 

in the history of car design – believe me it's not easy but we are trying to do our 

best, thinking only for the future of our company,” concludes Filippo Perini. And 

while its latest creation may not shock and flirt with the blatancy of earlier cars 

such as the Countach, the efficient channeling of the design team's passion and 

creativity, allied to the exacting standards of the VW Group, ensures that the 

Aventador perfectly reflects its era. 

Related Articles: 

Design Review: Lamborghini Reventón 

Design Development: Lamborghini Estoque 

Interview: Walter de'Silva, Head of Design, Volkswagen Group 

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