Video: flat-out in a Lambo Aventador SV

In this job, there are times where a pinch is needed to bring you back to reality. But on a recent trip to Italy, a pinch wasn’t enough – I’d have been better putting my whole arm in a vice.
 
It started pretty well, having driven a Lamborghini Miura on a glorious, winding alpine road. However, that was just the start. See, that was at the top of the Great St Bernard Pass – a fabulous driving road made famous in the opening sequence of The Italian Job. But in order to keep the Miura safe and let the V12 sing out, the Italian constabulary was kind enough to close the whole road for us. All of it.
 
That gave me a healthy 14 kilometres of pristine, closed Alpine road to play on. Photoshoot complete and pictures in the can, I had a free afternoon. So it’d be silly not to use the rest of the day playing on a completely deserted and testing pass, wouldn’t it? 
 
Now, regardless of the car, that sounds inviting. But, I just so happened to have the keys to a pretty special shuttle – a 740bhp, sub-three-second-to-sixty sort of shuttle. Namely, an Aventador SV Roadster. Git, I know.
 
With supercars getting faster and more competent, it’s becoming harder and harder to push their limits and see what they’re like on a public road while maintaining your driving licence. So having the opportunity to test the four-wheel-drive system, brutally claggy gearbox and that massive V12 all the way up a rocky profiterole of a mountain (safe in the knowledge that no one was coming the other way) was a bit special.
 
Especially as the Italian rozzas – camera phone in one hand, iPad in the other – were willing me on to go as fast as I liked. So it’d been rude not to give them what they wanted.
 
You can check out the results above…