Ferruccio Lamborghini

Ferruccio Lamborghini was born 28 April 1916 in a small village in northern Italy. From childhood he had always had a big interest in motors. When he was old enough his parents arranged for him to go to an industrial college in Bologna. After a couple of years he graduated with a degree in industrial engineering and started to work at a repair workshop.

Early in his twenties the second world war started and he served his country by working at the an Italian air force base at Rhodes repairing vehicles. At the end of world war 2 he were more or less forced to continue work on allied vehicles until 1946. When he finally got home he began to repair broken tractors in Italy using parts from military vehicles. This was how he started his tractor factory which soon made him a very successfull buisnessman. He was a man who understood to enjoy life and because of his interest in auto-mobiles especially fast ones he bought several Ferrari's during these years.

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But back in those days the Ferrari's for the road where not build in a proper way. Many Ferrari owners were unsatisfied with their cars but they did not dare to complain because they then might not be aloud to buy one. The reason for the poor service was that Enzo Ferrari spent all his energy with his racingprogram and that the roadgoing cars where just made to get money for the development of his racingcars.

In the early sixties Ferruccio Lamborghini owned a Ferrari 250 GT and though he had had it repaired several times they never seemed to repair it properly. And this is where the legend of Lamborghini began.

One time when Ferruccio Lamborghini had just got his Ferrari back from the factory where they should repair the clutch they still hadn't solved the problem so Ferrucio himself went to pay Enzo Ferrari a visit.

He went to the factory and told Enzo a thing or two about what he thought of him and his miserable cars.

Enzo answered back that Ferrucio was just a simple peasent with no knowledge at all about fullblood exotic sportscars.

After some arguing Ferruccio Lamborghini decided that he would beat Enzo where it hurt the most by building his own cars. So he hired the best men he could find and began his adventure of building the perfect GT car. Not only would he make them better and faster but he also wanted to listen to his customers and help them with any trouble they might have with their cars.

He started by building up a new factory and the company "Lamborghini Automobili" only 15 km. from Ferrari's factory. He started on his new car in a corner of his tractor factory, before his car factory was ready, spending almost his time developing his car. He worked very close with his emploies because he wanted to be a part of every aspect in the development and was often the last man to turn off the lights.

Late in October 1963 he first car was ready - it was the Lamborghini 350 GTV.

This however was just a prototype and the first productioncar did not arrive until March 1964 with the 350 GT that showed the hole world that Ferrari could be beaten.