Lamborghini Aventador J unveiled at Geneva Motor Show

Motor shows, and especially the big ones such as Geneva, are always full of surprises. Great concepts, practical production cars and some wacky ones that just serve as examples of design departments of auto makers getting a really free hand are abundant on the show floors. But on those rare occasions, you’ll get to see a car that will utterly stun you and leave you speechless following the dull ‘thud’ your jaw makes as it hits the ground. And if anyone can have that effect on show goers as well as the millions tuned in to the latest launches by way of the internet, it’s that mad little car maker nestled away in the hills of Sant’Agata Bolognese in Italy – Lamborghini.

This year though, at the Geneva Motor Show, Lamborghini has outdone itself. That’s a tall order considering what it gave us last year at Geneva, the Aventador. The internet was already abuzz with rumours for the last few months about the roadster version of the Aventador making a show at Geneva. Now throughout history, the roadsters that roll out with the Raging Bull badge always manage to look even more gorgeous when compared to their hard-top siblings. So it was a foregone conclusion that the topless Aventador would be no different. But this time Lamborghini seems to have taken the business of taking an axe to the roof of their latest hypercar rather literally. It’s all gone – the roof and the windscreen even. And the result is nothing short of utterly insane, the Aventador J.

Yes, the Aventador J has no roof and no windscreen. Instead, it features two small wind deflectors in front of each seat, and a centre mirror that pops up from between them like an aerodynamic little dish antenna. On either side, there are similarly styled wing mirrors as well. Then there is the new air dam at the front and back, both of which have been supplemented by carbon-fibre winglets, making the design look even more aggressive than before. A huge rear carbon-fibre spoiler adds even more ‘racy’ bits to the car. The Aventador J sacrifices all the luxuries of modern cars such as the sat-nav, air conditioning and even seat fabric. To save weight, the boffins at Lamborghini have come up with a new carbon-fibre fabric called ‘Carbonskin’ which they claim is soft enough to use on the interior as well as the seats.

At the back, the crazy 6.5-litre V12 engine which produces an insane 700PS of power as well as its lightning quick gear changing ISR transmission is retained. So is the four-wheel drive system that sends all this destructive power to the four wheels. So one can imagine that no amount of performance as been lost. Zero to 100km/h should still come up in under three seconds and it will still scream its way to speeds of well over 300km/h. Just in this case, the brave driver (and brave passenger if any) would need to wear a helmet.

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What is stunning most of all about the Aventador J is of course the way the designers have managed to get the exterior to flow into the interior back into exterior again – nothing short of a work of art! But sadly that is what the Aventador J will always remain – a work of art. It is an absolute one-off. Even though the car is entirely road legal, the one that is on display on the show floor at Geneva is the only one that will ever be made. But what’s even crazier is that it is actually on sale. No price has been announced, and let’s face it, you can’t put a price on art. One extremely lucky, and extremely rich person will actually get to drive it home, and there is a good chance that it’ll spend the rest of its days being admired and treasured like a priceless painting. Think of it as a Monet then, or a Rembrandt, albeit one which can shake your house down with the noise it makes and rearrange your organs when you put your foot down.