Ferruccio Lamborghini

Ferruccio Lamborghini was born on April 28, 1916, into a farming family at Renazzo, near Cento in the northern Italian province of Emilia-Romagne, and many years later he was to return to the land. His stocky build and tenacity marked him out as a man of the Italian countryside. Make what you wish of his birth under the Zodiac sign of Taurus, the Bull…

His early interests were not agricultural but mechanical, and after a period of selftuition he attended a technical school in Bologna. During the Second World War he served in the Regia Aeronautica, the Italian Air Force, working in transport sections, and in 1944-46 served under the British military forces in a similar capacity.

He returned to civilian life in his own small garage, converting military vehicles into tractors and tuning small Fiats, the mainstay of most small Italian automotive boutiques. He raced one of his Fiat specials just once, crashing out of the 1948 Mille Miglia.

Developing his tractor business took all his time, and set him on the way to becoming a millionaire (in any currency). From 'bitza' machines, Lamborghini Trattrice moved on to producing original tractors at the end of the 1940s, and to a comprehensive factory. Soon this was almost self-sufficient, making its own engines and transmission units. The tractors carried a charging bull badge.

Other industrial enterprises followed primarily making central heating and air-conditioning equipment. Then Lamborghini turned to cars. He ran a succession of high-performance cars, and seemingly felt that they all lacked refinement. However, legend has it that the idea came to him after a discussion with Enzo Ferrari, when Ferruccio complained about the noisy gearbox in his new Ferrari. It seems that Ferrari’s reply was simply "You stick to tractors and let me build sports cars.", and that was the point when he decided to build a better car…

Lamborghini initially seemed to make the right moves, for example in picking his lieutenants in this venture and not putting himself in the hands of a bank, but he soon found the going tough. Supercar manufacture in itself was not enough to sustain a sophisticated factory, and in the early 1970s his other companies could no longer underspin the enterprise. Lamborghini had to sell, at first a controlling interest and then the complete car company. The tractors went to Fiat; the air conditioning company failed.

Ferruccio moved to his estate near Perugia, further south in Italy, and his name began to be associated with the making of wines. Ferrucio produced a red wine called Colli del Trasimento, and known by everyone as "Blood of the Miura". It was here, at the age of 77, where Ferruccio died on February 20, 1993. His viniculture will soon be forgotten; his cars never will be…

• The founding of Lamborghini
  

A wealthy manufacturer of tractors and air conditioning and heating units systems after World War II, Lamborghini was an enthusiastic owner of sports cars. After owning and driving a Mercedes-Benz 300SL, a Jaguar E-Type, an Alfa Romeo 1900, a Lancia Aurelia B20 and a Maserati 3500GT, he bought his first Ferrari, a 250GT. He became a Ferrari enthusiast, eventually owning three. However, he had recurring clutch problems, and eventually brought his complaints to Enzo Ferrari. Ferrari insulted Lamborghini, effectively stating that a tractor manufacturer was not qualified to criticize Ferraris. Affronted by Ferrari's reaction, Lamborghini began to repair his clutch himself, at which point he noticed that some of the clutch components were the same as the ones he used on his tractors. He replaced the clutch with one built to a stronger specification, which solved the problem. Lamborghini then decided to build faster and more reliable cars than Ferrari and to prove that supercars did not have to be as temperamental as Ferraris.
In order to achieve his goal, he founded his own rival sports car manufacturer near the Ferrari factory, and hired ex-Ferrari engineers Gianpaolo Dallara and Bob Wallace to design and develop the cars. His first production car, the Lamborghini 350GT, was superior in every respect that Lamborghini had criticised in his Ferraris. His third model, the Miura, was a ground-breaking and legendary car that started the genre of the mid-engined supercar. He has developed many unique designs that describe the Italians best when they design cars: luxurious, smart and safe.
Lamborghini's (non-)racing policy
As a manufacturer of sports cars, Ferruccio Lamborghini was unique in his racing policy. While other sports car manufacturers sought to prove the speed, reliability, and technical superiority of their cars through participation (and hopefully victory) in motor racing, Lamborghini clearly stated that his company would not participate in or support motor racing. This was in direct contrast to Ferrari's policy, where the main purpose his production cars served was to generate revenue to fund his continued participation in racing. The "no racing" policy caused some tension between him and his ex-Ferrari engineers, who were all racing enthusiasts. Several of them started to develop a mid-engined car with racing potential in their spare time. Lamborghini discovered the project at the prototype stage. He allowed them to continue the project, but insisted that there would be no racing versions built. This project evolved into the Miura.

• The bullfighting legacy

The crest of the company, a bull, was taken from Lamborghini's zodiac sign, Taurus. The Miura was named after a breeder of fighting bulls, Don Eduardo Miura. Islero was named after a Miura bull that killed famed matador Manolete (real name Manuel Laureano Rodriguez y Sanchez) on August 28, 1947. Espada means "sword", the weapon of the matador. It is also used colloquially for the matadors themselves as they are the swordsmen that can be seen on old bullfight posters. The name Lamborghini Jarama had an interesting double meaning: Jarama is an area renowned both for bullfighting and for its motor racing circuit.
It is not known if the Countach, a verbal equivalent to a wolf whistle in Italian, the last car to be developed under Lamborghini's ownership, was intended to break this tradition, as the name has no basis in bullfighting. Later owners of the company reverted to this tradition, namely with the Diablo (a famous bull), the Murciélago (after Murciélago a famous bull that contributed to the Miura breed), the Gallardo (a caste of bull that is an element of the Miura breed) and the Reventon (a famous bull best known for killing famed bullfighter Félix Guzmán in 1943).