Lamborghini

The company was a spin-off from the very successful tractor maker, Lamborghini Trattori S.p.A.. Its owner Ferruccio Lamborghini[?] (1916-1993) was an enthusiastic owner of sports cars, including a Ferrari. The standard tale goes that he took this car back to the Ferrari factory when its clutch failed. Enzo Ferrari refused to meet him. So - after fixing the clutch with surprising ease - he decided to go into business building his own exotic sports cars.

Featuring bodies designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro[?] and Marcello Gandini[?], Lamborghini's products are amongst the most expensive, and also most powerful, road-going vehicles made.

Lamborghini's products included the Miura[?] (1966), Countach[?] (1974), Jalpa[?] (1981), and Diablo (1990) as well as the LM002[?] (1986) off-road vehicle of which Road and Track magazine said, "With the 5.2 liter V-12, the LM002 can pass anything on the road - except a gas station".

The current (2003) range consists of the flagship Murcielago and the smaller, cheaper Gallardo[?]. Both are very fast, mid-engined 2-seaters with four-wheel-drive[?] as standard. Styling for both cars is largely the work of Belgian designer Luc Donckerwolcke[?].

Lamborghini has had a number of owners, as shown in this simplified list:

• Ferruccio Lamborghini 1963-1970
• Georges-Henri Rossetti & René Leimer 1970-1977
• bankrupt 1977-1984
• Patrick Mimran (managed 1980-1984) 1984-1987
• Chrysler 1987-1994
• Megatech[?] 1994-1998
• Volkswagen group since 1998

See also: List of Italian companies

External Links

• Lamborghini official web site (http://www.lamborghini.com/)
• Lambo Cars fan site (http://www.lambocars.com/)