Lamborghini
The legendary models of Lamborghini began out of Ferruccio Lamborghini’s ambitious motive to compete with Enzo Ferrari in 1963. Born a Taurus and already a very successful and well-known man, Ferruccio felt that Ferrari’s cars were too Spartan, too noisy and too similar to track cars. Despite people thinking he was mad and would lose his fortune without ever turning profit, Ferruccio founded ‘Automobili Ferruccio Lamborghini’ and bought a large plot of land in Sant’Agata Bolognese, Italy where he built his unrivalled facility of its time.
The enormous building where manufacturing took place sat adjacent to the office building so management could constantly monitor production. With only a few months between the building of his factory and its official presentation, Lamborghini quickly hired the right men for the job. Giotto Bizzarrini, who had designed some of Ferrari’s recent engines, was hired to develop what Ferruccio envisioned as the best V12 in the world. For the rest of production, Ferruccio hired two promising engineers, Giampaolo Dallara and Giampaolo Stanzani. The end result was the Lamborghini 350 GTV, a true masterpiece.
Ferruccio’s coupes began drawing a lot of attention by early 1965. When the Lamborghini 400GT was presented at the 1965 Turin Auto Show with its extravagant chassis, made out of bent and welded sheet metal that was drilled and made the 400GT more lightweight, Nuccio Bertone approached Ferruccio. Bertone, an expert on cars and engines, told Ferruccio that he was the one who could “make the shoe to fit your foot”. The two shook hands and marked the beginning of an extraordinary adventure.
Given its name after the Spanish bullfighting legend, the Miura was born and had an enormous international impact after its presentation at the 1966 Geneva Motor Show. The Miura gave Lamborghini unique prestige. Lamborghini’s name became a symbolic name in the auto world, the emblem of success, of going further at all costs, of always doing more and better than any rival without perceptions of conventional limitations.
Since then, Lamborghini has seen ownership through several parties who have all done their best to keep Lamborghini’s prestige high and continue to produce some of the world’s finest exotic cars.