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Lamborghini
Automobili-Lamborghini S.p.A., commonly referred to as Lamborghini, is a subsidiary of German car manufacturer Audi AG . It is a manufacturer of high performance sports cars based in the small Italian village of Sant'Agata Bolognese, near Bologna. more...
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The company was founded in 1963 by businessman Ferruccio Lamborghini (April 28, 1916–February 20, 1993), who owned a successful tractor factory, Lamborghini Trattori S.p.A..
History
Around the 1960s, tractor manufacturer Ferruccio Lamborghini began to gain interest in developing a high-performance car. He had owned Oscas, Maseratis, and Ferraris, but was never completely happy with his car. Although there are several versions of what finally drove Ferrucio to bring his car company into existence, they all involve a conflict between Enzo Ferrari (the founder of Ferrari) and Ferruccio, driving Lamborghini to set up his own company to compete against Ferrari's. The most common version, as told by Ferruccio Lamborghini's son , is that Ferruccio Lamborghini went to meet Enzo Ferrari at the Ferrari factory to complain about the quality of the clutch in the Ferrari 250 GT he owned. Enzo Ferrari sent him away telling him to go and drive tractors because he was not able to drive cars. Lamborghini went back to his factory, had his Ferrari's clutch dismantled and realized that the clutch manufacturer was the same who supplied the clutches for his tractors. In his warehouse he found a spare part which he thought suitable, and when it was installed the problem was solved.
Ferrucio decided that his car was to have a V12 engine, and enlisted the services of talented engineer Giotto Bizzarrini, who had previously worked on a Ferrari V12. The new engine had 4 cams, a short stroke and 2 big bore valves per cylinder, and developed a surprising 350 horsepower. The engine featured aluminium construction, with a crankshaft supported by seven main bearings, forged aluminium pistons, and camshafts with their own half-engine-speed sprocket and silent chain. The car the engine was mounted in was designed by Franco Scaglione's Scaglione-Touring.
This Lamborghini 350GTV prototype began making public appearances in 1963, starting with the Turin Auto Show. Sales of the production model, known as the 350GT, began the following year with great success, with over 130 examples sold. Born under the sign of the taurus, Ferrucio Lamborghini used the bull as the badge by which to mark his new automobile.
The 350GT was followed up by the 400GT. The excellent sales of the 400GT and its predecessor gave the company sufficient funds to design its first supercar - the now-legendary Lamborghini Miura, which was premiered by Ferruccio himself in November 1965 at the Turin Auto Show. The car's engine was transversely mounted. The styling was executed by Marcello Gandini in less than a year; a completed car was displayed at the Geneva Auto Show in March of 1966 (the Turin car was only a chassis). The car's name was taken from that of a famed fighting-bull trainer, Don Eduardo Miura. The Miura was an absolute success for Lamborghini, 111 were sold in 1967, and propelled the company into the world of hundred-million-dollar supercar manufacturers.
Read more at Wikipedia.org
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