Three V12s in twice as many months? Should we be worried? Consider that Lamborghini’s Countach and the production version of Claude Bailey’s Jaguar 5.3-litre V12 were launched astride the peak of the 1970s oil price crisis. Bugatti’s V12-engined EB110 and the V12 TWR/Jaguar XJR-15 were launched into the trough of the early 1990s monetary squeeze-induced recession.
Pagani’s V12 Zonda coincided with the dot-com bubble bursting at the end of the last millennium and Aston’s own V12 One-77 supercar was launched in 2008 at the height of the post-Lehman Brothers banking crisis.
And now we get Lamborghini’s Revuelto (a V12 plug-in hybrid), Ferrari’s 12Cilindri naturally aspirated V12 and Aston Martin’s generation-three V12 twin-turbo Vanquish, which all seem to presage something, but what? Should we run for the hills? Stuff our money under the mattress? Keep buggering on?
