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Feature
Spotted for Sale — Ferrari 812 Competizione Aperta
If you like unique specifications and carbon fibre (lots and lots of carbon fibre), this one is for you!
May 19, 2025
Similar colours, similar prices, two very different approaches — Ferrari’s hybrid wizardry vs Lamborghini’s NA V12 theatrics.
Today’s window shopping takes us to European Prestige to decide between two heavyweights of the supercar world in matching specs. In the blue corner, we have the brutally powerful hybrid Ferrari SF90 Spider, and in the erm, other blue corner, is the oh-so-dramatic NA V12 Lamborghini Aventador SVJ. Let’s see how they stack up.
If there’s one thing the SF90 doesn’t lack, it’s performance. Combining a tweaked and slightly larger capacity version of the 488’s twin-turbo V8 with three electric motors gives the SF90 1,000PS (or 986hp, which doesn’t sound as good, does it?). That’s a single horse fewer than the Bugatti Veyron, from an engine half the size, with over 300 fewer kilos to lug around — how time moves on!
Four-wheel drive means every one of those horses can claw the tarmac in the right conditions and send the SF90 to 62mph in 2.5 seconds, or you can put it in full electric mode and disturb your neighbours no more than a milk float would.
Values of the Spider are still fairly strong, and with less than 1,000 miles, this gorgeous Blu Dino car is around £10,000 more than the original list price, although it is dripping in eye-wateringly expensive options including carbon fibre wheels, so it is definitely significantly under list. If you want hypercar performance for supercar money, you can now get a coupe SF90 Stradale for a number starting with a two.
The SF90 is undoubtedly one of the most technologically advanced supercars around, and you either love it or hate it for that. The performance and handling are unrivalled for the money, but for some, the trade-off in emotion is more of a price to pay than the £430k you’ll have to cough up to own it. If that sounds like you, I imagine the other car we’re looking at today will be right up your street.
If theatre is your thing, the Lamborghini Aventador is for you — any Aventador, frankly. That said, whilst earlier models weren’t renowned for being the best driving machines, the SVJ is another story. Admittedly not as potent in a straight line or nimble in the twisties as the SF90 still, the SVJ’s 759hp V12 is hardly lacking in punch, and chassis trickery like rear-wheel steering finally gave the Aventador some real handling prowess.
The SVJ is such a blistering all-round package, that it broke the Nurburgring Nordschleife production car lap record in 2018 with a time of 6:44.97, and seven years later, only a handful of serious track weapons have beaten it — Porsche 991 GT2 RS MR, 992 GT3 RS, Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series and the Mercedes-AMG One hypercar.
More than sheer pace though, the SVJ is about knocking your socks off with the way it looks and blasting your ears off with a symphony of naturally-aspirated V12 wailing and assorted cracks and bangs. If you look for the way a supercar makes you feel, rather than just how it goes, the SVJ would win your heart if it had half the power it has.
You might think these colours match perfectly, but look a little closer and Lamborghini’s Blu Nila has a gorgeous metallic fleck under the sunlight, and the SVJ logo painted in Ad Personam gold on the rear haunches is a stunning finishing touch to complement the gold wheels.
Oh, and values are pretty darn strong too, with just 963 coupes produced (including 63 SVJ 63 special editions). List price was a smidge under £400,000, and whilst this is a massively specified car with less than 1,000 miles on the clock, asking a fiver under half a million shows how highly the SVJ is regarded.
