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The Mansory Venatus is a widebody Lamborghini Urus that could scar your retinas

Nothing says, "I am a person of exquisite taste with an appreciation for subtlety" quite like the purchase of a Lamborghini Urus, but there are some in the world for whom that is not enough, people who need just a little bit more if they're to be properly satisfied.  From the extensive use of carbon fiber in crafting new exterior parts, to the hours spent painstakingly poring over every detail of the interior to make sure it was as blue as possible, it's clear the Mansory Venatus is nothing if not more. It's also not new, strictly speaking. With the 2020 Geneva Motor Show deteriorating into a sort of chaos, we've been perhaps a bit over-vigilant in looking for anything that may have fallen through the cracks in coverage. While researching Mansory's new Bentley Continental GT offering, we spotted this gem and quickly realized that it slipped under our scopes last year. Either that, or the sight of it alone inflicted so much trauma that we've blocked it out; it could easily have gone either way.  The Venatus is essentially a collection of wide body panels and other exterior parts from Mansory's growing Urus catalog. Everything from the individual pieces of the fender flares to the front of rear bumpers can be ordered individually, or as part of Mansory's three available Urus packages: Soft Kit, Wide Body and this one.  This is far from the first time Mansory has thrown carbon fiber at a Lamborghini. We're frankly surprised that it isn't even more extreme, either visually or in terms of performance, as the German tuner has gone down both roads before.  Related Video:      

Second Lamborghini Revuelto Opera Unica inspired by Sardinian coastline

Not long after debuting its new Revuelto, Lamborghini rolled out a one-off example prepared by the Ad Personam personalization division called the Opera Unica, which is Italian for "unique work." That "purely artistic" exercise of Ad Personam's capabilities, fittingly launched during Miami's Art Basel show, required 435 hours to paint the bodywork and another 220 hours to paint and stitch the interior. Nine months later, a second Revuelto Opera Unica stays closer to Lamborghini's home, being inspired by the coastline of Sardinia and revealed at the island's Hotel Cala di Volpe. The resort lies on the island's Emerald Coast, and while emerald gems run from yellow-green to blue-green, Lamborghini artists emphasized the blue for this Revuelto, using brushes, trowels, spatulas, and more by hand to complete a 475-hour paint job.  CEO Stephan Winkelmann said, "This Opera Unica takes our creativity a step further, demonstrating paint techniques and interior finishes that are reserved for Opera Unica one-offs, presenting a truly unique art-piece reflecting the distinctive seascape and emotions of Italy’s most beautiful island destination." Outside, Nero Bocca paint provides the canvas, complemented by the carbon splitter and sills, and wheels in Shiny Black with Diamond Polished Altanero. From there, a Light Blu Tawaret base blends with an even lighter Blu Cepheus, Blu Okeanos, sometimes to suggest waves, sometimes as a gradient, sometimes with sharp separation following the vehicle lines.  The automaker didn't say how long the craftsmen spent on the interior, only noting that it took 85 hours to make the tool required for the embroidered accents on the seats. Thread colors in Blu Amon, Blu Cepheus, and Bianco Leda are meant to suggest waves and wash against the primary cabin colors of Blu Delphinus and the lighter Blu Amon. Even the start button gets in on the wavy look, a Blu Mira Carbon plaque on the rear bulkhead acting as a signature for the artwork. It's business as usual for the gasoline-electric plug-in hybrid drivetrain, a new 6.5-liter V12 working with three electric motors and a 3.8-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack to make 1,001 horsepower and 793 pound-feet of torque. And as with the last Opera Unica, we're not sure where this one will end up. But now that you've seen (again) what Ad Personam can do, there's no reason you can't commission a V12-powered postcard of your own.

Lamborghini Huracan Performante's active aero is the secret to its speed

The most revolutionary real technology at this year's Geneva Motor Show didn't look like it on the show stand. If you squint at the Lamborghini Huracan Performante, it merely looks like a Huracan with a big wing. Up close, you can see the fractal texture of the forged-composite aerodynamic add-ons, but that still doesn't tell you why this car is so special. Lamborghini calls it Aerodinamica Lamborghini Attiva (ALA), or active aerodynamics. This is one of the biggest keys to the Performante's claimed production-car record lap time at the Nurburgring Nordschleife of 6 minutes, 52.01 seconds. The Huracan Performante's number is not without controversy, but I personally care very little about the obsessive phallic-measuring contests that are 'Ring lap times. What's fascinating about the Performante is that, if the lap time is even close to legitimate, it shows that ALA is a major step forward in automotive performance. More than just lap times, the Huracan Performante is an example of why Lamborghini remains special in a world of democratized performance. We sat down to discuss this with Lamborghini's Research and Development Director, Maurizio Reggiani. And one last note on the lap time: Reggiani says with the same temperature and exclusive access to a dry track, "that in this average of speed we can repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat." In previous conversations, Reggiani said that the key difference in performance would come not from horsepower, but weight reduction. For Lamborghini, that means plenty of carbon fiber. But the newest Huracan is not a Superleggera, the old title for the hardcore variant. "Superleggera is too much an objective, a description. Performante is really the DNA of the car. In Italian, Performante means really the best performance," he said. Reggiani continues, "Nothing happened by chance. It's really a building-block approach where you say this can give this contribution, this can give that. Where can you improve something and what is needed to improve something?" That brought them to the active aerodynamics solution, which channels air to stall the front or rear aero elements of the car to change the downforce and drag. Reggiani says, "This can be achieved only with a system that is really light, [has] fast responsiveness. Based on this ...