Ferruccio Lamborghini was born in 1916 into a farming family near Cento, in the Po valley, and was mechanically minded from childhood. After serving as a mechanic in the air force during the war, he built tractors from surplus military vehicles, and by the 1950s Lamborghini Trattori was one of the largest tractor makers in Italy. He was rich, and he bought fast cars.
The story he told, many times and with variations, is that his Ferrari kept burning out its clutch, that he found it used the same part as his tractors, and that when he complained to Enzo Ferrari he was told to stick to tractors. True or not, in 1963 he founded Automobili Lamborghini at Sant’Agata Bolognese to build a better grand tourer.
The first, the 350 GT, arrived in 1964. Then, in 1966, three young engineers — Gian Paolo Dallara, Paolo Stanzani and Bob Wallace — working largely in their own time on a chassis with the engine mounted crosswise behind the cabin, produced the Miura. It was the first road car with that layout at that level of performance, and the word supercar was more or less invented for it.
Ferruccio was never much interested in racing. When his tractor business ran into trouble in the early 1970s, he sold his car company and retired to a farm by Lake Trasimeno, where he made wine and named one of them after the Miura.
He died in 1993. The 350 GT and the Miura in this catalogue are his first two cars.
Foto: Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
What he built
Cars in the catalog that carry his work — or his name.
