Tanti auguri, Ferruccio Lamborghini!

Enzo Ferrari's unscrupulous comment (see below) was probably the final impetus for Ferruccio Lamborghini to embark on one of the most extraordinary adventures in modern automotive history. The man who took the risk of competing with the then already world-famous Commendatore by producing a sports car was born on 28 April 1916 under the sign of Taurus. A constellation that suited Lamborghini, who was imposing in stature and blessed with a fiery temperament. He later chose the animal as the trademark of his automobiles, a bull with its head tilted to attack another symbol of a challenge to the rearing horse from Maranello.

The young Ferruccio was born in Renazzo di Cento, a village in the heart of Emilia-Romagna. However, he didn't have much interest in working in the fields. He was much more interested in the agricultural machinery on the farm. He attended a technical college near Bologna and was able to graduate from the Taddia Institute before the war began. When the war broke out, Ferruccio Lamborghini was twenty-three years old; in the uniform of the Italian Air Force, he soon found himself on Rhodes,  when Italy invaded Greece in 1940. During the liberation of the island by British troops, Lamborghini discovered the British aircraft. Even the war could not stop the soldier Lamborghini from tinkering with cars and motorbikes ... After the Second World War, Ferruccio Lamborghini ran a small shop selling gymnastic accessories. Nothing for the car and technology enthusiast. Like many motoring enthusiasts, he began working on a Fiat 500 "Topolino" at the end of the 1940s, one of the most popular Italian cars at the time.

The originally closed vehicle was converted into an open two-seater. The engine and cylinder head were modified, increasing the displacement to 650 cubic centimetres. He was so impressed with the result – Lamborghini called the little racer the "Testa d'Oro" – that he had the Topolino included in the list of participants in the 1948 Mille Miglia. The Lamborghini/Baglioni team's Fiat number 427 bounced from bend to bend until it finally went off the road and had to give up. Lamborghini had to retire, and in retrospect it will be remembered above all for the first victory of another car ... the Ferrari Coupé 166 from Biondetti.

Ferruccio Lamborghini knew what Italy needed in those years, and his common sense advised him to enter the agricultural machinery business. In 1952, he produced the first tractors bearing his name. After just a few years, he was the third-largest Italian manufacturer in this sector behind Fiat and Ferguson. The reputation of his company was based on the particularly careful production of the machines. The crankshafts were ground and balanced, and the pistons came from Eaton Livia, which also supplied Maserati. Lamborghini gradually expanded its production programme. In 1960, he founded the company "Lamborghini Bruciatori" in a suburb of Pieve di Cento, which manufactured heating and later air conditioning systems. Around fifteen tractors and one hundred radiators left the Lamborghini factories every day. He was convinced that there must still be a gap in the market for a manufacturer that had "something different" to offer than Ferrari or Maserati. A car with a more original design and more avant-garde mechanics.

He single-handedly financed "Automobili Ferruccio Lamborghini S.A.S." out of his own pocket, an investment of over 500 million lire. The newly founded company moved into a 90,000 square metre site in Sant'Agata Bolognese, not far from Modena and Cento, on which Lamborghini had three building complexes erected; the main building housed the assembly lines and offices, while the smaller side wings housed the testing department on the left and the systems engineering department on the right. On 26 October 1963, the first Lamborghini 350 GTV was presented to the press, and a few days later it made its public debut at the Turin Motor Show. The Lamborghini adventure had begun ...

Ferruccio Lamborghini died on 21 February 1993.