Lamborghini Vehicles

Overview

    One of several upstart Italian sports car companies that rose to challenge the dominance of Ferrari, Ferrucio Lamborghini's company outlasted rivals like Bizzarrini, De Tomaso, and Iso Rivolta (and later, Cizeta and Bugatti S.p.A.) to become the greatest rival to the prancing horse. Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. was founded by its namesake in 1963; Ferrucio Lamborghini had previously manufactured tractors. According to gearhead lore, the Italian industrialist owned a Ferrari that gave him mechanical difficulty, and complained directly to Enzo Ferrari, who brushed aside his critiques. Incensed, Mr. Lamborghini decided to build his own line of sports cars, built to meet his own tastes. A line of two-seat and two-plus-two grand tourers followed, all impressive in their own way, but conventional aside from the use of V-12 engines (which were uncommon in sports and GT cars of the Sixties). However, Lamborghini went sharply unconventional in 1966, with the unveiling of the Miura, one of the first mid-engined road cars, and the first with V-12 power. Although development of front-engined touring cars continued for a decade after the Miuras introduction, Lamborghini's image soon became wedded to the mid-engined supercar, a basic design soon copied by Ferrari, among many others. Unusually for an exotic car company, Lamborghini also built a sport-utility vehicle, the LM002. Financial trouble dogged the company for many years. Lamborghini sold his company to Swiss investors in 1973, during the first oil crisis, but it went bankrupt in 1978. Continuing to make cars while in receivership, it was bought by Messrs. Mimram in 1984, who in turn sold it Chrysler in 1987. When the recession of the early 1990s cooled demand for supercars, Chrysler sold out to Megatech, an Indonesian investment group. Megatech later acquired American supercar manufacturer Vector, and used the engine from the Lamborghini Diablo to power the Vector M12. Finally, Megatech sold Lamborghini to Audi in 1999. Volkswagen has owned Lamborghini ever since, and has leveraged some of Lamborghini's technology across other VW marques, including Audi's own R8 supercar. Today, Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. is wholly owned by Audi AG, a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG. Lamborghini's headquarters are in Sant'Agata Bolognese, Bologna, Italian Republic, and all Lamborghini models are produced at its Sant'Agata factory.

CARS

SPORT-UTILITY VEHICLES