Ferruccio Lamborghini was born in Italy in 1916. He was fascinated
with
engines from an early age. During World War II he joined the army and was stationed on the
island
of Rhodes. Fortunately there was little going on there during the war. The island was essentially isolated from the rest of the world
Any cars, trucks or motorcycles that broke down had to be
repaired
on the spot with reused parts.
Lamborghini became known as a wizard at mechanical
improvisation
and
became very much in demand at fixing engines.
After the war he returned to his home near Modena
in northern Italy and setup a small car and motorcycle
repair shop. He soon realized that there was a desperate
need for
tractors in the agricultural area in which he lived.
He found he could build about one tractor a month from derelict
military vehicles.
As Italy's economy grew demand for his high quality tractors
started to grow.
He began building his own tractor engines.
His tractor business became very successful reaching a rate of
over 400 a month in 1960.
He soon looked at expanding the business and in 1960 began
manufacturing heaters and air conditioning
units for buildings as well as maintaining the tractor business.
This too became very successful.
About this time Lamborghini started to get interested
in developing a high performance car. He had owned Oscas,
Maseratis and Ferraris but was always disappointed with them.
Particularly their engines. There is a now famous story about how
he was frustrated with problems he had with a clutch in a Ferrari
(a Ferrari 250 GT),
and went to visit Enzo Ferrari who's factory was nearby.
Enzo had no time for a tractor manufacture and simply dismissed
him.
Lamborghini decided there was nothing Ferrari was doing he could
not do better.
He decided too build his own car with a V12 engine. For the design
he found
a very talented engineer named Giampaolo Dallara who had previously
worked on
a Ferrari V12 engine.
The new engine had 4 cams, a short stroke and 4 big bore valves per
cylinder.
It developed a surprising 350 HP. It was an all aluminum engine with a
crankshaft supported by seven main bearings. These crankshafts were
machined from SAE 9840 steel. The connecting rods (12) were of SAE
4340 steel.
The pistons were of forged aluminum. Each pair of camshafts were
driven by
their own half engine speed sprocket and silent chain. This engine was
really the
prototype for all future Lamborghini engines. A body designed by
Scaglione-Touring
was used to house the engine.
The Lamborghini "350 GTV" prototype was shown to the public on the
Turin Auto
Show of 1963. Sales started the following year. The car was called the
350 GT.
It was a complete success. Over 130 were sold.The future of
Automobili Lamborghini
looked very bright during the sixties. The 350 GT was succeeded by
the 400 GT and
then the 400 GT 2+2. The 350 GT and 400 GT 2+2 made the
Lamborghini name
known throughout the world. With the funds coming in from these cars
and his
successful tractor business Ferruccio allowed his engineers to design
and
construction a new car - the Lamborghini Miura. The Miura made the
Lamborghini
name legendary. It was a car truly ahead of its time. It shocked even
companies like
Ferrari and Maserati. The Miura was first shown on November 1965
at the Turin Auto Show by Ferruccio
Lamborghini himself. Only the chassis was shown at the show,
the engine was
transversely mid-mounted, something up to then only seen in real
F1 race cars.
The design of the body was executed by Marcello Gandini in
less than a year,
and on the March 1966 Geneva Show it was completed and
on display.
It looked even better than in Turin. The car was very aggressively styled,
and an appropriate name was chosen for it, the Miura, a name
taken from the
ferocious Spanish fighting bulls.
Again the car was a complete success.
 This was followed in 1973
at the Geneva
Auto Show when Lamborghini
shocked
the world again with his
revolutionary
LP400 Countach. Only a
prototype
was shown. Today it is
difficult to
realize the impact that car
had
on everybody at that time.
Even now the
car is a show stopper! The car at the show
was painted in a bright red and with a black
suede interior. It showed for the first time,
the by now, famous, Lamborghini signature
swing up doors. It also displayed unique
vertically mounted rear air intakes to go with
its powerful 4 Liter engine.
In 1974 disaster struck. The Lamborghini tractor business received
a major setback.
A massive order for tractors to a south American country was cancelled.
Lamborghini
anticipating the demand, had previously upgraded the tractor factory
to be able to
build the numbers of tractors required. The company lost a lot of
money over it.
Compounding things also at this time was a series of labor problems
at the factory.
While his personal fortune was still considerable he decided to sell
part of his share
in the factory. Eventually the factory was taken over by Fiat.
During the seventies the company survived on sales of Miura's.
The car business started to be self sufficient and make money.
However Lamborghini eventually sold all his remaining stock in
the company to a
Swiss investor. The company to this day still retains his name however.
Ferruccio
Lamborghini died in
February 1993 at the age of almost 76
The oil crisis of the 70's started to made sales of high performance cars
difficult.
Production art the factory was plagued with budget and parts supply
problems.
People gave up waiting for cars with two year back orders. A wealthy
Canadian,
Walter Wolf, played a major role is supporting Lamborghini and
developing
the
Countach during these difficult times.
In 1978 the company declared bankruptcy. An Italian court was appointed
to find a buyer.
A Swiss based group called the Mimran brother's were able to save
the factory.
Patrick Mimran (one of the brothers), in 1980 started to turn the
company around.
The Countach was developed further under him from the LP500 S
right up to the
impressive QuattroValvole. .
Just as things were going well, the Mimran brothers sold the company
to Chrysler Corporation.
This was a big surprise at the time. Chrysler support however was just
what the
company needed at that time. They were working on a Countach successor --
the Diablo.
Chrysler kept the winning team together in Italy. While the cultures
of the
two companies were different and things got stressful between the
management groups,
they did succeed in bringing the vast resources of Chrysler to bear
on the design,
pollution controls, and new manufacturing techniques etc. for the
new car.
Again the result was an outstanding success. The new Lamborghini
Diablo
got rave reviews
everywhere it went. However in another twist of faith, in 1994
Chrysler fell upon
hard times and had to sell the company. It was bought by an
Indonesian investment
group headed by Tommy Suharto of the well known Suharto family.
Unfortunately in
the late 90's an economical crisis started to hit the Indonesian owners
hard and the
much needed money for research on a successor to the Diablo started
to dry up.
Fortunately the German company Audi had an interest in Lamborghini.
On August 4 1998,
in a complex series of transactions Audi AG became the sole owner
of
Automobili Lamborghini. As in the case of the Chrysler buyout, this
could not have been
a better time for Lamborghini. Audi took an active role in designing
the Murcielago and
brought to the table again the vast resources of a major automobile
company to develop
and produce another exotic car.
Lets hope this is the last chapter of ownership changes in this unique
little Italian car company.
It is to the credit of the people there that they have hung in to all the
changes of ownership
they have experienced over the years and yet produced such
exciting cars. |
|
No comments:
Post a Comment