Blog Posts

8 hours ago

by Sebastian Cenizo Supercars / 5 Comments

Lamborghini founder, Ferruccio was born 105 years ago this week.

The past year may have been tough for most of us, but automakers at the very highest level weathered the storm very well. One carmaker that has done particularly well is Lamborghini, and it has been celebrating a couple of milestones this year.

The Miura, a legend of Italian auto history, turned 50 while the GT3 version of the Huracan has seen its 400th example built this month. But none of these achievements would have ever been written in the history books if not for the automaker's bullish founder, Ferruccio Lamborghini. This week, on April 28, would have been his 105th birthday.

Automobili Lamborghini was established in 1963, but Ferruccio arrived on the planet back in 1916 as the eldest son of farmers Antonio and Evelina Lamborghini. Ferruccio's farming background is fairly well known, but few are aware of the fact that he actually cut his teeth in mechanics in "the best mechanical workshop in Bologna" before World War II saw him being drafted to the 50th Mixed Manuever Motor Fleet stationed in Rhodes.

There, he took care of the maintenance of all the island's military vehicles, and at the end of the war, he opened his first business, a small mechanical repair shop, on the same island.

1946 saw Ferruccio return to Italy, opening a machine shop in Cento from which he repaired cars and built small utility vehicles. With his farming background, he took an interest in the local agriculture industry and came up with the idea of building inexpensive tractors using the components of old military vehicles. This is where his main success started, and the rest is history.

Ferruccio's ingenuity and obsession with quality are what caused him to give up on buying Ferraris and start building his own cars, and it's that spirit that has given us excellent machines like the Huracan Evo. The great man, who died on February 20 1993, would surely be proud of what's coming next.