Lamborghini

67 Pages·2010·6.957 MB·English

by  James Bow

Crabtree Publishing Company
www.crabtreebooks.com
Superstar Cars
Lamborghini
James Bow
Author:James Bow Photographs:
Publishing plan research and development: Alamy:Colin Curwood: p. 11; imagebroker: p. 17;
Sean Charlebois, Reagan Miller Oleksiy Maksymenko: p. 24, 30–31; Phil Talbot: p. 37, 49;
Crabtree Publishing Company culture-images GmbH: p. 39; Alvey & Towers Picture
Editor:Sonya Newland Library: p. 42; Jonathan Tennant: p. 48
Proofreader:Molly Aloian Corbis: Transtock: p. 8; Rick Maiman/Sygma: p. 38; Car
Editorial director:Kathy Middleton Culture: p. 45
Project coordinator and prepress technician:Margaret Salter Dreamstime:Disegnos: p. 34–35
Print coordinator:Katherine Berti Lamborghini:p. 1, 6–7, 9, 12, 13, 14, 16, 21, 22–23, 23, 24–25,
Series consultant:Petrina Gentile 26, 26–27, 29, 31, 32, 35, 40, 41, 43, 46, 47, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54,
Cover design:Ken Wright 55, 56, 56–57, 58–59, 59
Design:Paul Cherrill Motoring Picture Library:p. 18–19, 20, 33, 36, 44;
Photo research:Amy Sparks Tom Wood: p. 5, 10, 15
Shutterstock:front cover; Christoff: p. 4
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bow, James, 1972- Bow, James.
Lamborghini [electronic resource] / James Bow. Lamborghini / James Bow.
p. cm. -- (Superstar cars)
(Superstar cars) Includes index.
Includes index. ISBN 978-0-7787-2151-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) --
Type of computer file: Electronic monograph in PDF format. ISBN 978-0-7787-2144-4 (reinforced library binding : alk. paper) --
Issued also in print format. ISBN 978-1-4271-9549-4 (electronic (pdf))
ISBN 978-1-4271-9549-4 1. Lamborghini automobile--Juvenile literature. I. Title. II. Series.
1. Lamborghini automobile--Juvenile literature. TL215.L33B69 2010
I. Title. II. Series: Superstar cars (Online) 629.222'2--dc22
TL215.L33B69 2011a j629.222'2 C2010-905633-7 2010034936
Crabtree Publishing Company Printed in the U.S.A./102010/SP20100915
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Contents
1 From Tractors to Cars 4
2 The First Lamborghini 10
3 Lamborghini Rises 18
4 Lamborghini After Ferruccio 28
5 Chrysler Joins In 38
6 Stability, Growth, Acclaim 46
7 Driving Into the Future 56
Lamborghini Timeline 60
Further Information 61
Glossary 62
Index 64
Chapter 1
From Tractors to Cars
Lamborghinis are not your average car. They’re not even
your average luxury car. They are some of the most expensive
cars on the planet. They are powerful cars, driven by 12-cylinder
engines capable of 670 horsepower—as much power as your
average 18-wheeler truck. In expert hands, they can hit 211 mph
(340 km/h) and can go from 0 to 60 mph (97 km/h) in 2.8 seconds.
The car of choice
Lamborghinis do not have fully
automatic transmissionsand not
all have stability control systems.
They are not cars that take care of
drivers. They are cars that drivers
control. That is what their drivers
Everything in a Lamborghini’s
want—to have control over design and construction epitomizes
unmatched power in a car that supercar style and power.
has been designed with elegance.
They may be driven by princes and
billionaires, but believe it or not,
Lamborghinis were invented
by a tractor maker.
4
Ferruccio Lamborghini Italy needs tractors
When Lamborghini was founded in 1963, Times were hard in postwar Italy.
Italy was home to famous car companies Farmers in particular had a problem—
like Fiat, Ferrari, Maserati, and Alfa there were no tractors. The country’s
Romeo. It was a crowded field, but within auto plants had been building war
two years, Lamborghini had taken its equipment since the late 1930s. What
place alongside these companies as a tractors could be found were old and
maker of great fast and fancy cars. run down. To solve this problem,
Ferruccio Lamborghini took parts from
It had an unlikely beginning. Ferruccio
abandoned military equipment and
Lamborghini, the company’s founder,
built a tractor for his parents. People
was born on a grape farm in 1916.
were so impressed by the Lamborghini
As a young man he preferred fixing
family’s new tractor that neighbors
equipment to tending grapes. Seeing
asked Ferruccio to build tractors for
his talent, his parents sent him to a
them, as well.
technical institute near Bologna to
study mechanics. In 1940, he was drafted
into the Royal Italian Air Force, where he
served as a mechanic during World War II.
The charging bull logo
Returning home after the war, Ferruccio is now recognized all
over the world as the
opened an auto repair shop and garage.
badge of a car in
a class of its own.
The charging bull
Ferruccio Lamborghini was fascinated
by bullfighting. In 1962, just before
founding Automobili Lamborghini, he visited
the ranch of Don Eduardo Miura, a famous
breeder of Spanish fighting bulls. Ferruccio
was so impressed by the animals that he
adopted the image of the raging bull as the
emblem for his company. Several of his
car models have bullfighting-related
names, including the Murciélago,
the Urraco, the Jalpa,
and the Miura.
5
Lamborghini Tractori
By 1948, Ferruccio had established
Lamborghini Tractori, which he
operated out of his garage. Within two
years, the company produced over 1,000
tractors. By 1960, Lamborghini Tractori
was one of Italy’s largest manufacturers
of agricultural equipment—and
Ferruccio was one of the richest
men in the country.
Not fast enough?
Ferruccio Lamborghini loved fast
cars. He had enough Alfa Romeos
and Maseratis to drive a different one
every day of the week. The cars were
the best on the market, but none of
them pleased him. “They felt heavy
and did not really go very fast,” he said.
Ferruccio wanted a grand tourer—or
“gran turismo,” in Italian—a vehicle to
speed the driver across the countryside
in luxury, with controls that responded
quickly to the driver’s command.
In search of perfection
In an interview with Sporting Motorist
magazine in 1964, Ferruccio said,
“I have bought some of the most
expensive gran turismo cars and in each
of these magnificent cars I have found
some faults. Too hot. Or uncomfortable.
Or not sufficiently fast. Or not perfectly
finished. Now I want to make a GT
car without faults.” Ferruccio bought
Lamborghini’s founder,
a Ferrari 250 GT in 1958. Putting the
Ferruccio, with one of his
car through its paces, he would often supercars—and one of
grind the gears, forcing him to take his famous tractors!
the car back to Ferrari to be fixed.
6
On water
Although Lamborghini saw himself
as a car builder, in 1968 he couldn’t
resist installing a four-liter V12 engine on
a powerboat. Lamborghini prototyped a boat
called the “Quetzal” but decided instead
to supply the engines for offshore racing.
In 1984, Count Renato della Valle used
a Lamborghini engine to win the round-
Britain race. More recently, an 8.2-liter
V12 Lamborghini engine powered
the boat “Spirit of Norway”
to victory in 2002.
7
Modified Ferraris Lamborghini vs. Ferrari
Enzo Ferrari was secretive about To hear Ferruccio tell it, the first
the manufacture of his cars. Garage meeting between Lamborghini
mechanics would take cars to the back and Ferrari did not go well. “I had
and not let their owners watch the work to wait for him a very long time,”
being done—something that angered he explained. “‘Ferrari, your cars are
mechanic Ferruccio. He took matters rubbish!’ I complained. Il Commendatore
into his own hands, modifying his was furious. ‘Lamborghini, you may be
Ferrari 250 GT with parts from his able to drive a tractor but you will never
tractors. When he found that his be able to handle a Ferrari properly.’”
modified car could outperform According to Lamborghini, this was
Ferrari’s stock models, he took his the moment he decided to make a
concerns to Enzo Ferrari himself. perfect car.
The rivalry between Ferrari (red) and Lamborghini
8 (yellow) started in the 1960s. Even today, supercar
fans are often loyal to one make or the other.