Lamborghini Centenario: Celebrating the Founder
Ferruccio Lamborghini was born on April 28, 1916 in Cento, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. To celebrate his 100th birthday in 2016, the company he founded — and sold in 1972, before it passed through multiple owners to land in the Audi/VW Group in 1998 — created the Centenario: a limited-edition hypercar that combined the Aventador’s V12 platform with new technologies, new aerodynamics, and a new visual identity. It was not merely a tribute to a man. It was a demonstration of where Lamborghini’s technology was going.
Production: 20 Coupes and 20 Roadsters — 40 cars total, each individually numbered. Price: €1.75 million before local taxes.
All 40 were sold before the car was publicly revealed at the Geneva Motor Show in March 2016.
The Context: Ferruccio’s Legacy
Ferruccio Lamborghini sold his car company in 1972, disillusioned by the direction it had taken. The engineer who wanted to build refined grand tourers — cars that would be better than Ferrari in comfort as well as performance — found himself running a company that had pivoted to extreme supercars (the Miura) and then to more extreme ones (the Countach). The mid-1970s oil crisis damaged the market, the Countach’s development was consuming resources, and Ferruccio had already begun investing in wine production on his estate in Umbria.
He died in 1993, having seen his company go through Swiss, American, and finally German ownership, but also having seen it achieve global recognition as one of the most desirable automotive brands in history. The Murciélago, the Gallardo, the Aventador, the Huracán — all of these were built after he sold the company. What would he have made of them?
The Centenario is, in part, an answer to that question. Its combination of a 770 hp V12 with advanced chassis electronics, four-wheel steering, and sophisticated connectivity represents the trajectory from Ferruccio’s original 350 GT to whatever Lamborghini will build next — a continuous line from the practical visionary to the technical visionary, connected by the V12 engine that has defined the company since 1963.
The Engine: Most Powerful Naturally Aspirated V12
The Centenario uses the Lamborghini V12 in its most powerful naturally aspirated specification at the time of its production — the same 6.5-liter unit that powers the Aventador, revised and tuned to produce 770 hp at 8,400 rpm.
Why More Power? The modifications that extracted additional power from the LP700-4’s 700 hp baseline include:
- Revised Intake: The air intake system was redesigned to reduce flow restriction at high RPM. The intake runners and plenum volume were optimized specifically for the power output target.
- Exhaust: The exhaust system uses larger-diameter primary and secondary sections, reducing back-pressure that limits high-RPM power output.
- Rev Limiter: The standard Aventador’s rev limiter was raised from 8,350 rpm to 8,600 rpm — a 250 rpm increase that, with the revised intake and exhaust, unlocks power in the upper rev range.
- Lighter Internals: Revised reciprocating components (lighter pistons and connecting rods) reduce internal inertia, allowing the engine to spin up faster and maintaining the Centenario’s throttle response.
The result is 770 hp at the time of launch, the most ever produced by a Lamborghini road car’s naturally aspirated V12 — a record that stood until the Aventador SVJ’s 770 hp (identical figure, slightly different specification) and the Aventador Ultimae’s 780 hp.
Sound: The 6.5-liter V12 at 8,600 rpm is one of the defining sounds of the modern supercar era. The Centenario’s exhaust tuning — with triple central-exit pipes — concentrates this sound rearward, creating a wall of mechanical noise that is audible at significant distance. The triple exhaust tips exit through the center of the rear bodywork, screaming the V12’s full output directly into the atmosphere.
Rear-Wheel Steering: A Technology Preview
The Centenario’s most significant engineering contribution to Lamborghini’s future was its Rear-Wheel Steering (RWS) system — the first application of this technology in any Lamborghini road car.
Rear-wheel steering works by turning the rear wheels in addition to the front wheels during cornering. The system operates in two distinct modes depending on speed:
Low Speed (opposite phase): Below approximately 80 km/h, the rear wheels turn in the opposite direction to the front wheels. This effectively shortens the car’s wheelbase — reducing the radius around which it turns — making the Centenario feel more agile in tight corners than its actual dimensions would suggest. In practical terms, a car with RWS in opposite-phase mode behaves as though it were a shorter, lighter vehicle in urban maneuvering and slow-speed cornering.
High Speed (same phase): Above approximately 80 km/h, the rear wheels turn in the same direction as the front wheels. This effectively lengthens the wheelbase, increasing straight-line stability and reducing the tendency for the rear to step out during quick direction changes on the highway. The car feels more planted and more settled at speed.
The combined effect is a V12 Lamborghini — a car with a 2,700mm wheelbase and 1,740 kg — that handles with the agility of a smaller, lighter car at low speed while maintaining the stability of a long-wheelbase GT at high speed. Lamborghini’s engineers described the Centenario as feeling “500 kg lighter than it actually is” in dynamic testing, which is a reflection of the RWS system’s contribution to the car’s perceived agility.
This technology appeared in the subsequent Aventador S as standard equipment and has since been applied throughout the Lamborghini lineup. The Centenario was its development testbed.
Design: “Breathable” Bodywork
The Centenario’s exterior design — developed entirely in-house at Lamborghini Centro Stile in Sant’Agata Bolognese — is more restrained than the deliberately provocative Veneno that preceded it, but contains significant aerodynamic engineering.
The Rear Diffuser: The most visually dominant element is the largest rear diffuser ever fitted to a production Lamborghini road car. It spans the entire width of the car’s rear and features substantial vertical fins that channel, separate, and accelerate the airflow exiting beneath the car. The diffuser is not merely visual drama; it generates meaningful downforce and reduces lift at the rear axle.
Integrated Air Management: The Centenario’s body channels air through the car rather than simply around it. The headlight housings incorporate air intakes that direct flow toward brake-cooling ducts. The roof features an air intake that channels cooling air to the engine bay. Vents in the rear haunches manage hot air from the engine and exhaust.
The Wheel Design: The Centenario-specific wheel design uses a five-spoke open structure designed to minimize air turbulence within the wheel arch, reducing the drag penalty created by rotating wheels.
Front End: The nose is aggressive with a full-width carbon fiber splitter and aerodynamic canards. The headlights are a Y-shaped DRL design that became a template for subsequent Lamborghini lighting design — the same Y-motif appearing in revised form on the Huracán EVO and the Urus.
Interior: The Modern Age Arrives
Before the Centenario, Lamborghini’s infotainment technology was, by common consensus, embarrassing. The Aventador used a recycled Audi MMI unit — functional but dated, visually inconsistent with the car’s extreme character, and lacking the connectivity features that buyers increasingly expected. The Huracán’s infotainment was better but still not industry-leading.
The Centenario introduced a 10.1-inch portrait-orientation touchscreen — positioned vertically in the center console, dominating the cabin without obscuring the driver’s forward view — with the following capabilities:
- Apple CarPlay: The first Lamborghini to integrate Apple’s smartphone connectivity system.
- Real-time Telemetry: A system that records and displays the car’s performance data — lateral G-force, acceleration, braking, GPS track mapping — in real time and for post-session review.
- Internet Connectivity: LTE connection providing weather, navigation, and web-based services.
- Infotainment: Full audio system with streaming capability.
This screen technology subsequently migrated to the Huracán EVO (2019) and the Revuelto (2023), and represents the beginning of Lamborghini’s serious engagement with digital connectivity as a core feature rather than an afterthought.
The 40 Cars: Where Are They Now?
The 40 Centenarios — 20 Coupes, 20 Roadsters — are distributed among collectors worldwide, with concentrations in the United States, Middle East, and Europe. As with most extreme limited-edition Lamborghinis, their specific locations and ownership histories are largely private.
What is known is that several Centenarios have appeared at concours events, Lamborghini’s own owner gatherings, and historic motor shows in the years since their delivery. They are not garage queens — the buyers who paid €1.75 million for a car built in honor of Ferruccio Lamborghini tend to drive them.
Current market estimates place values for Centenario Coupes at €2.5–3.5 million and Roadsters at €3–4 million — significant premiums over the original price that reflect both the car’s rarity and the desirability of Aventador-era V12 Lamborghinis in general. As the Aventador platform approaches the end of production and naturally aspirated V12s become increasingly scarce in new cars, the Centenario’s historical significance increases accordingly.
Legacy: The Smart Lamborghini
The Centenario is the “Smart” Lamborghini — the car that demonstrated that Lamborghini’s ambitions extended beyond dramatic styling and V12 noise to genuine chassis dynamics innovation and digital technology leadership. Rear-wheel steering, the 10.1-inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay, and the integrated telemetry system all represent departures from the “brute force and visual drama” formula that had characterized the brand’s previous technological direction.
It is, ultimately, a fitting tribute to Ferruccio Lamborghini — the tractor mechanic and entrepreneur who decided to build a better car than Ferrari not just because it was loud or fast or dramatic, but because it was better engineered. The Centenario’s combination of the highest naturally aspirated V12 power Lamborghini had produced, the most advanced chassis dynamics system they had ever deployed, and a digital technology suite that would define their infotainment for the next decade is precisely the kind of technical ambition Ferruccio respected and embodied.