The V12 shrieks a battle cry that totally grabs your attention, and it looks as a supercar should

There aren’t many new cars as instantly recognisable as a Lamborghini. Ever since the Countach exploded onto the scene in 1971, Gandini’s wedge dictated the marque’s subsequent design language. The common DNA is also strong beneath the skin, and the current V12 is a direct descendant of Giotto Bizzarrini’s power unit found in the 1964 350GT.

Fashions may come and go, but Lamborghinis remain the prime-choice supercar for the connoisseur of the wild. And the latest – and last – Murciélago LP670-4 SV is the wildest of them all. Next year, it will be replaced by an all-new car.

Now in 6.5-litre Super Veloce form, power has vaulted to 661bhp (from the LP640’s 632bhp), weight has dropped to an almost sylph-like 1565kg (down 100kg), and, if you go for the optional Aero package, you get an extravagant rear deck spoiler.

On the road, the myriad of upgrades that turn the LP640-4 into the LP670-4 SV combine to make this the most potent Murciélago yet. The all-wheel drive set-up is rear-biased, offering phenomenal traction off the line – floor it from rest and there’s almost instant take-off, with no transmission slippage. Power delivery is clean, but at 5500rpm all hell breaks loose, and the once-linear power delivery goes exponential – the engine note hardens, the thrust increases, and the run for the red-line becomes an avalanche. During its 7.3-second rush from nought to 100mph, the E-Gear transmission violently bangs up the ratios twice, and is just as quick if left to its own devices as if you were pulling on the shift paddles. Give the Murciélago its head and its maximum speed is 209mph (or 212mph without the wing).

Despite that, the Murciélago isn’t all about straight-line speed: roadholding is superb, with near-zero levels of body roll, prodigious grip out of corners and a merest hint of safe understeer on a trailing throttle into higher-speed bends. As for lateral grip, it’s unlikely you’ll ever come close to reaching its limit on public roads. It’s the same with the ceramic brakes – they’re strong enough to rearrange the driver’s internal organs.

The interior makes great play of the carbonfibre heavily used in the Murciélago‘s construction, and looks stripped out. It isn’t: climate and cruise control along with a fully featured in-car entertainment system mean you could live with this car day in day out, if you could slake its huge thirst.

But we’re losing sight of the facts. Yes, it’s a car you can live with, yes, it’s monstrously fast, and yes, it clears the outside lane of the motorway most effectively, but what the Murciélago is really about is making you feel special. The V12 shrieks a battle cry that totally grabs your attention, it looks as a supercar should, and it draws crowds wherever you park and open those scissor doors.

The Murciélago is a proper Lamborghini, and completely true to its maker’s core values. And for that, for the lucky few, it will be worth every penny of its £265,937 sticker price.