Lamborghini Tractors: The Kerosene Trick That Paid for the Miura Every Lamborghini legend told in America starts in the same place: a rich tractor maker drives to Maranello to complain about his Ferrari’s clutch, Enzo tells him to stick to tractors, and the rest is posters on bedroom walls. Nobody ever stops to ask what … Read more
Lamborghini marine engines: the 880 hp L804 V12, ten Class 1 offshore world titles, Don Johnson’s Mississippi record and Ferruccio’s Riva Aquarama.
The Lamborghini Formula 1 engine: five years of Forghieri’s V12, the podium the FIA erased, the Lambo 291 and the 1993 McLaren test with Senna.
Lamborghini Portofino: Four Scissor Doors, Frankfurt 1987 If you drove a first-generation Dodge Intrepid, you drove the face of a Lamborghini. Chrysler built 645,281 of them between 1993 and 1997, and the nose on all of them traces back to a four-door Lamborghini prototype that was shown exactly once. The car is the Portofino, unveiled … Read more
Lamborghini Athon: 260 HP, No Roof, Turin 1980 Bertone brought a brand-new Lamborghini to the Turin motor show in April 1980. An open two-seater, futuristic, with a fully digital instrument panel and a single-spoke steering wheel. Lamborghini had been bankrupt for two years. A coachbuilder publicly unveiled a car for a client that was in … Read more
Lamborghini Bravo: 300 HP and 2,390 lb in 1974 A show car does not get driven. It is pushed onto the stand, lit, photographed and put away. The Lamborghini Bravo covered tens of thousands of test kilometers. American journalists drove it and published a verdict. And in April 1978, three and a half years after … Read more
Lamborghini Urraco, Silhouette and Jalpa: Eighteen Years of a V8 That Never Sold Lamborghini spent eighteen years trying to sell a small eight-cylinder sports car. Between the Urraco, the Silhouette and the Jalpa it managed roughly 1,255 cars. Ferrari, in the same segment with a single model, sold more than twelve thousand 308s. That is … Read more
Lamborghini Jarama: Ferruccio’s Own Favorite Asked which of his cars he preferred, Ferruccio Lamborghini did not say Miura. He said Jarama. And he said it late, in 1991, when he had nothing left to sell: he preferred it to all the others because it was the perfect compromise between the Miura and the Espada. That … Read more
Lamborghini Islero: The One Ferruccio Kept for Himself Ferruccio Lamborghini named his grand tourer after the bull that killed Manolete, kept one as his own daily driver, and almost nobody bought it. Of the 225 that left the factory, one ended up trying to qualify for the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the hands … Read more
Lamborghini Espada: The Four-Seat V12 That Started as a Jaguar Lamborghini’s family car was not drawn in Sant’Agata. It was drawn in London, over Jaguar mechanicals, on commission from a British newspaper. The wooden body buck built for that Jaguar was then reused to put together the first Espada prototype. None of that appears in … Read more
Lamborghini 350 GT: Born With Bricks Under the Hood The car that founded Lamborghini went on public display with its hood latched shut and construction bricks inside. No engine. Just masonry, sitting where a V12 was supposed to be. That happened at the Turin show in late October 1963, days before Automobili Ferruccio Lamborghini S.p.A. … Read more
Paolo Stanzani: “I’m Tired of Building Toys for Rich, Spoiled People” The Lamborghini Miura exists because two young Italian engineers were obsessed with a race car built in Dearborn, Michigan. That’s not a stretch. Ferruccio Lamborghini had explicitly forbidden his staff from building anything resembling a competition car — racing was an expense he had … Read more
