New Lamborghini 700hp V12 revealed

The New Lamborghini V12 for the Murcielago's replacement

Lamborghini confirms their new V12 for the Jota/LP700-4/Aventador will have 690bhp, 509lbs/ft of torque and rev to 8250. Plus a new single clutch ‘box

It certainly makes a change to get something official from Lamborghini on the replacement for the Murcielago. I think we’d prefer it if we were something we’re not sure of like the name, for example. So far we’ve had Jota and LP700-4 and this weekend we had Lamborghini Aventador, and we’ll probably get more before the Murci’s replacement arrives at Geneva 2011.

But what has been pretty clear foir a while is that the new Murcielago will get an all new, much lighter V12 with 700hp. And so it is. Lamborghini has spilled the beans on the new heart for its range-topping supercar, and it does make good reading.

Hand-built at Sant’Agata rather than on Audi’s production line, the new V12 boasts 690bhp with 509lb/ft of torque, revs to 8250rpm and will take the new car to 62 mph in under 3 seconds and top out at nearly 220mph. It will also be mounted lower than in the current car to keep the centre of gravity as low as possible.

We’ve also had confirmed that the new Lamborghini will get an all-new gearbox developed with Graziana, which is a single clutch, seven-speed gearbox (apparently Lamborghini don’t think dual-clutch boxes are suitable for supercars) which will manage changes in just 50 milliseconds.

The power will go to all four wheels via a Haldex system – a change from the current viscous-coupling setup – with 70% of the power going to the rear by default. But the system can apparently feed up to 60% to the front wheels if needed.

Most of which we knew, bar the minutiae.