Lamborghini Designer Says that Aventador J was Cooked up in Six Weeks

Can you imagine any automaker coming up with a new model in just six weeks? You read that correctly: an entire car, not its ashtray or a pair of steering column stalks.

Yet that this is how long it took Lamborghini to prepare its fully functional Aventador J speedster that caused a sensation at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show.

 

Stephan Winkelmann, who ordered his cohorts to ready “something special” for Geneva, has served as a paratrooper in the German army for two years and his first job was at the German financial institution MLP.

 

However, Herr Winkelmann grew up in Rome, where he also studied Political Science, and was employed by Fiat for a decade before his appointment as Lambo’s CEO.

Not just any VW Group company, but a supercar manufacturer that was born out of Ferrucio’s desire to serve a cold dinner of revenge to none other than Enzo Ferrari.

 

Top Gear magazine interviewed Lamborghini’s designer Filippo Perini about the creation of the one-off hypercar.

“It was the 14th of January that Mr Winkelmann asked us to do something for Geneva”, explains Perini. “A blank sheet. Do what you want. I drew this car in a weekend…”

That left just six weeks for the car to be ready for the show. If you think that the Aventador J is just a “regular” coupe with its roof and windshield removed, think again: it’s a completely new design, with only the front bonnet, headlights and front and rear fenders that were carried over from the regular production model. 

 

Everything else was new. From the huge air intakes at the front to the bigger rear diffuser, the one-off speedster, that was sold even before its unveiling, is completely redesigned.

 

FYI, we were always a bit skeptic of Lamborghini’s claim that the “J” in the speedster’s name was inspired by the FIA’s Appendix J rulebook for homologating road cars. 

 

Seriously, can you imagine anyone, least of all the company that gave us the likes of the Miura, the Countach and the Diablo naming their most extreme creation after a rulebook? Even the Germans are not that pedantic…

Well, the rulebook does have something to do with it: Perini confirms that the “J” actually harks back to the iconic Miura P400S Jota (which, sadly, was destroyed completely in a crash). It was a one-off racing prototype created by Lamborghini test driver Bob Wallace in 1970 and conformed to the aforementioned appendix J.

 

“I have always wanted to do something with the ‘Jota’ name”, says Perini. “Inspiration comes from the past and the Jota is the true heritage of our company.”