Lamborghini: From Farmhouse to Penthouse

“Ferruccio” is not a first name with which very many of us are familiar.  We look at it, “sound it out” in our mind, and maybe quietly say it several times, trying to figure out how it best sounds.  We can safely say that it’s an Italian name, and maybe it’s a fairly common name in Italy, though I’m no expert.

But the Ferruccio that’s the subject of Today’s History Lesson was definitely Italian, born in northern Italy on April 28, 1916.  Growing up in a largely agricultural area, he was excited not by farming itself, but by the equipment used.  After the war, Ferruccio began building tractors, first one for himself, then others for friends and neighbors.  By the mid 1950′s, he had a company that was building a thousand tractors per year, and Ferruccio was on his way.

His increased wealth allowed him to dabble in his other passion:  cars.  Like me, Ferruccio loved cars, and he was able to purchase more exclusive cars as his income grew.  Alfa became Jaguar, which turned to Mercedes and Maserati.  But the pinnacle was his purchase of his first Ferrari, a 250 GT.  He would buy other Ferraris, but he came away with the impression that they were basically road-going race cars, too noisy and too harsh for everyday driving.  He also disliked Ferrari’s standard of quality and the expense of upkeep.

So he decided to build his own car, and he formed a company to do it.  Like his tractor business, the company would bear not his first name, but his last.

Lamborghini.  Pronounced lam-bor-geen-ee.

And if you know anything about exotic cars, I can pretty much stop there.  If you don’t, I’ll continue a bit.  A 350GT, introduced in the early 1960′s, was followed by a 400GT.  The stunning (for its day) Miura was a pioneering mid-engine two-seat sports car.  Then came the popular Espada, Lambo’s first really successful seller.

The 1970′s brought a worldwide economic downturn.  It was then that Ferruccio sold his company and retired.  It was also then that the company produced its most recognizable car, the iconic Countach.  Designed by Bertone, it was very low, very wide, possessed a huge spoiler, and cost a fortune.  In production for more than 15 years, Lamborghini’s flagship car would see the company pass through bankruptcy and a sale to Chrysler in the mid 1980′s.

Then came the new flagship, the mega-expensive Diablo.  Costing well over $200,000 to purchase, it proved to be too much, and sales slumped badly.  Chrysler unloaded the company in 1994 to basically whatever entity would give them money, which happened to be an Indonesian holding company.  And during the Asian financial meltdown of 1998, it was sold again to Germany’s largest auto consortium…the Audi portion of VAG (the Volkswagen Audi Group).

Today, under Audi’s watch, Lamborghini is probably as stable a company as it has ever been.  It produces supercars that range from (relatively) affordable to fabulously expensive, that are well-built, and attractive.  The Gallardo (the more reasonably-priced model) features V-10 power (an engine which also powers several Audi models) and is one of my favorite cars.  For those of you with especially deep pockets, the 650-horsepower Murcielago (pronounced mercy-uh-law-go) might be the way you’d like to drop upwards of $400,000.

Ferruccio Lamborghini began by building tractors to travel in the dirt.  It’s a bit humorous to think that the vehicles that still bear his name will barely clear a dirt-clod laying in the road.  But they’re beautiful, even off the farm.

Happy Birthday Ferruccio Lamborghini!!

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