Lamborghini was founded in 1963 by Ferrucio Lamborghini, a former army member who established their own company committed to building tractors. The tractor business developed as years passed as well as in 1970 another factory was founded to produce air conditioning units and heaters for buildings. The incredible success was celebrated in Sant'Agata Bolognese, Italy where the company established its headquarters.
But everything changed when he met Enzo Ferrari. It was the moment when his desire to build high-speed supercars with luxurious interiors revealed itself. Ferrucio complained to Enzo about a clutch problem that the Ferrari he owned had. Enzo told him that "the problem is not with the car but with the driver..." and that he was asked to take care of his tractors and leave the issue for those who get sound advice.
Disappointed through the answer received, Ferrucio dismounted the transmission of his car and found out that his car used exactly the same transmission as his tractors. Because of this discovery, he asked some talented men who worked for Enzo Ferrari including Franco Scaglione, Giotto Bizzarini and Gian Paolo Dallara to provide him help. As a result, the team created the perfect competitor for that Ferrari cars, the Automobili Lamborghini.
Ferrucio was inspired by its birth sign, Taurus, and started using it as an emblem for his cars. In fact, even nowadays the Lamborghini cars are named after bulls. The Italian company also recruited Giotto Bizzarrini, a worker who used to work for Ferrari and asked him to create and manufacture a V12 engine for Lamborghini. This engine was soon built and was able to produce 400 horsepower. But because Ferrucio wanted a GT car and never a racing car, the ability was reduced to 280 horsepower.
The very first car manufactured by Lamborghini was the GTV prototype as the first production car was the Lamborghini 350GT manufactured in 1964. After the Lamborghini 350GT, the history of Lamborghini continued using the manufacture and release of the Miura, a genuine supercar named after a well-known bull race. However the success didn't stop here. In 1968 Lamborghini manufactured the Lamborghini Espada 400GT which was a large hit, a lot more than 1,200 cars being built at Sant'Agata.
In 1970, the race driver Bob Wallace worked to rework his Miura S right into a race car. He redesigned the suspension, reduced the weight and placed new spoilers receiving a fast race car that could range from zero to 62 mph in 3.6 seconds. But Ferrucio wasn't thinking about the race proposal of Wallace and chose to sell the prototype from the Lamborghini Miura Jota to an Italian enthusiast. In the 1970s, an italian man, company suffered due to the economic crunch and Ferrucio sold his shares to some Swiss car lover, George-Henri Rosseti. But the company continued without its founder. After some dark days and only one car produced (the Coutach 400S in 1980), Lamborghini was sold towards the French brothers Patrick and Jean-Claude Mimran who produced the off-road LMA series and the Coutach Quattrovalvole. Later, another page from the Lamborghini history was written when Lee Iaccoca bought the organization for $33 millions.
