Discover the story of Lamborghini

Lamborghini, one of the most famous Italian brands in the world. Travelling along the roads of the so-called Motor Valley, in the very heart of Emilia Romagna region, Northern Italy, we get to the Lamborghini Museum. Some kind of temple of this family brand.

The founder, mr Ferruccio Lamborghini, was one of the Motor Valley’s great pioneers, a living legend in his field. From tractors to sport racing cars was a short step, it seems. There’s nothing impossible when you are a mechanical genius, actually. Ferruccio was an artist who got quickly bored… that is the reason why Lamborghini has always meant some incredible, aggressive, futuristic and truly powerful models. He just had to keep innovate to feel good!

Today, the Lamborghini Museum is not just car museum, but a museum of art.

Lamborghini Museum

Travelling along the roads of the Motor Valley, through the heart of the Emilia Romagna region.
The land of motors, we’ve arrived in Cento.
Heading towards Ferrara, you can’t miss the temple that celebrates Lamborghini.
Signor Lamborghini I presume.
Fabio Lamborghini. I am the grandson of Ferruccio Lamborghini, the founder.
He was one of the Motor Valley’s great pioneers.
A legend, to whom this temple is dedicated.
This museum is like a spacecraft.
A special container, ready to take flight to go to its creator, Ferruccio.
It is also symbolic, it’s a tribute to Lamborghini.
And to think, it all came about as a result of a misunderstanding.
One day Ferrari made Ferruccio just a little angry.
In 1962 Lamborghini owned two Ferraris.
Which he modified, because, according to him, they had some defects.
When Ferruccio showed them to Ferrari as if to offer some friendly advice, Ferrari told him he didn’t know how to drive them and that he should stick to his tractors.

At that point, Ferruccio, who had been openly challenged, entered the world of motor cars.
Before that he was making tractors and his business must have been doing very well for him to own two Ferraris.
So, Ferruccio Lamborghini’s story begins with the tractor.
After the war, Ferruccio, the son of farmers, returned home and thought about doing something for farming.
This ingenious tractor was the result.
The legendary 1947 Carioca, that used engines from American war remnants.
But they ran on petrol and used too much fuel.
So he, being a mechanical genius, added a device to the engine that he called the evaporator.
This meant that the petrol was only used for starting the engine, after which it ran on diesel.
That was the economical running costs sorted.
This is the first ever Lamborghini tractor.
Ever since he started he always had a feel for the aesthetic.
The Lamborghini colours have always been famous.
Red, yellow, burgundy, grey, white. Lamborghini was a special sort.
Between one tractor and the next, ever since he was young, he had fun souping up cars.
At the time he couldn’t afford super-fast sports cars.
So, he decided to make a really fast one of his own, so that he could race in the Millemiglia of 1948.
He modified his Topolino car, using its chassis and the engine.
I don’t believe it. It’s incredible to think this was once a Topolino.
It was a Topolino, the details give it away: the engine’s cylinder head.
The radiator too, even if he moved it to a frontal position.
The headlamps, the wheel rims.
After all of that, this ingeniously revamped Topolona could do 160 km/h!
Lamborghini always was innovative.
He was a man who could see very far into the future.
Post World War II Lamborghini began with tractors.
Then there was the rift with Ferrari, and the motivation to get into the world of motoring.
In 1963, with this 12 cylinder, 3500 cc, with Scaglione -designed bodywork, Lamborghini launched himself onto the world of Gran Turismo cars.

He did a good job, with an incredible, aggressive , futuristic and truly powerful model.
Even at the time it was very modern and futuristic.
In 1964 the 350 GT, with its marvellous line, entered production.
A very beautiful, classic, European line, very elegant.
Comfortable, very fast and at that time it was already doing 250 km/h.
This vehicle was hugely successful for Lamborghini.
But he only made a few, because other ideas popped into his head.
He changed everything, and like an artist, not an industrialist, he produced other models.
He needed to create constantly otherwise he’d become bored.
As a distraction he made his masterpiece, with Bertone-designed bodywork.
The legendary Miura, a car that is now more than 40 years old.
The Miura was the first super car to have a rear, transverse engine fitted.
It’s huge!
The 12-cylinder was the most powerful engine ever for that time, with a speed of 300 km/h.
One metre five centimetres tall, the world’s absolute lowest.
They produced 762 of them.
They have been owned by many sheikhs, and famous Italian singers, Mina, Ornella Vanoni, Little Tony and Claudio Villa.
For many years the Miura is the only post World War II car to be exhibited in the MoMa in New York.
For the Americans it is the ultimate expression of art applied to a motor vehicle.
He began by building tractors, the farmers’ son.
He made an absolutely work of art, a museum piece!
Not a car museum, but a museum of art.
After the Miura, the new challenge was the Countach, manufactured from 1971 to 1990.
315 km/h, with its famous gullwing doors.
Those who saw it first were convinced the Martians had landed.
Ferruccio Lamborghini was a high flyer, so much so that he actually did fly.
He even produced his own helicopter!
The Lamborghini helicopter is still only a prototype, as is this one-off model.
Can I sit in the Pope’s golf cart?
Feeling like a Pope.
The Lamborghini trademark has done everything.
But why the symbol of the bull?
Being born on 28 April, 1916, the bull was Ferruccio’s astrological birth sign, Taurus.
Might it be that that bull is perhaps goring a prancing horse?
I cannot deny that this may also have been the idea.
How much more Po Valley and pre-tractor can you get than a bull?
It’s a perfect combination that unites Lamborghini with the land and with cars.
Lamborghini, a farmer who began with the land and tractors.
In just a few years he had invented cars that were to become global symbols of luxury and excellence.
Forget about the American dream, this was a dream from the Po Valley.
This is the Motor Valley.