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Lamborghini Aventador LP 750-4 SV retails for nearly $500k

Nobody ever said that buying a new Lamborghini would be an inexpensive proposition, but if the ~$200k sticker price on a new Huracan strikes you as high enough, you're don't even want to know how much the Raging Bull's new flagship costs. Presented this weekend for the first time in North America at the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance, the new Aventador LP 750-4 SV will set American customers back an eye-watering $485,900. Add to that the $3,700 gas-guzzler tax and $3,495 destination charge and you're looking at $493,095. That's just $6,905 short of half a million, and even that will disappear pretty quickly once you factor in all the gasoline and rubber you'll be burning through if you do right by the beast and actually drive it... not to mention insurance. That makes the new SuperVeloce nearly $100k more expensive than the Aventador coupe on which it's based, but hardly the costliest Lambo to date. That honor would go to the Veneno, which cost around $4 million. The half-million sticker price nets a twelve-cylinder supercar with 740 horsepower on tap, a 0-62 time quoted at 2.8 seconds and a top speed pegged at 217 miles per hour, making it one of the fastest cars money can buy – a stacking up rather well against hypercars like the Koenigsegg Agera, Pagani Huayra and Bugatti Veyron that cost many times more than the Aventador SV. Related Video:

Are supercars becoming less special?

There's little doubt that we are currently enjoying the golden age of automotive performance. Dozens of different models on sale today make over 500 horsepower, and seven boast output in excess of 700 hp. Not long ago, that kind of capability was exclusive to supercars – vehicles whose rarity, performance focus, and requisite expense made them aspirational objects of desire to us mortals. But more than that, supercars have historically offered a unique driving experience, one which was bespoke to a particular model and could not be replicated elsewhere. But in recent years, even the low-volume players have been forced to find the efficiencies and economies of scale that formerly hadn't been a concern for them, and in turn the concept of the supercar as a unique entity unto itself is fading fast. The blame doesn't fall on one particular manufacturer nor a specific production technique. Instead, it's a confluence of different factors that are chipping away at the distinction of these vehicles. It's not all bad news – Lamborghini's platform sharing with Audi for the Gallardo and the R8 yielded a raging bull that was more reliable and easier to live with on a day-to-day basis, and as a result it went on to become the best-selling Lambo in the company's history. But it also came at the cost of some of the Italian's exclusivity when eerily familiar sights and sounds suddenly became available wearing an Audi badge. Even low-volume players have been forced to find economies of scale. Much of this comes out of necessity, of course. Aston Martin's recent deal with Mercedes-AMG points toward German hardware going under the hood and into the cabin of the upcoming DB11, and it's safe to assume that this was not a decision made lightly by the Brits, as the brand has built a reputation for the bespoke craftsmanship of its vehicles. There's little doubt that the DB11 will be a fine automobile, but the move does jeopardize some of the characteristic "specialness" that Astons are known for. Yet the world is certainly better off with new Aston Martins spliced with DNA from Mercedes-AMG rather than no new Astons at all, and the costs of developing cutting-edge drivetrains and user interfaces is a burden that's becoming increasingly difficult for smaller manufacturers to bear. Even Ferrari is poised to make some dramatic changes in the way it designs cars.

Another Lamborghini Veneno for sale, this time for only $8m

There are some cars you expect to see coming up for sale often in the used car listings. Civics, RAV4s, F-150s... you know, the kind of car that they build by the thousand, build to sell, and build to last. More attention-grabbing for us, though, is when we see multiples of a rarer model coming up time and again in the same place. Like the Lamborghini Veneno, for example. The factory in Sant'Agata only made three of these coupes for public consumption, and each of them sold for about $4 million. So we were surprised when we saw one pop up on Mobile.de with a whopping $11 million price tag. But we were even more surprised to see another one for sale on the same site, just weeks later. Pictured with red details (instead of white like the last one), this example is listed as the first of the three made, with only 100 kilometers (62 miles) on the odometer. Its owner is asking ˆ7.1 million – equivalent to nearly $8 million at current exchange rates. That's about twice what Lamborghini charged in the first place, four times what it charged more recently for the new Centenario, and twenty times the price of the Aventador on which they're all based. But it's still a heck of a lot less than the $11 million asked for the last one. Of course, the seller can ask for however much he or she wants, but actually getting that price is quite another matter. Part of us gets the feeling that if someone were really that interested, the listings wouldn't still be up for weeks now. The other part is surprised some squillionaire somewhere in the world hasn't ponied up an even $20 million to take both home already. Related Video: