Lamborghini Information

Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A., commonly referred to as Lamborghini, is an Italian car manufacturer. The company was founded by manufacturing magnate Ferruccio Lamborghini in 1963, with the objective of producing a refined grand touring car to compete with established offerings from marques like Ferrari. The Lamborghini's first models were released in the mid-1960s, and were noted for their refinement, power and comfort. Lamborghini gained wide acclaim in 1966 for the Miura sports coupé, which established mid-engine design as the standard layout for high-performance cars of the era.

Lamborghini Logo

After a decade of rapid growth, hard times befell the company in the mid-1970s, as sales plunged in the wake of the 1973 world financial downturn and oil crisis. After going through bankruptcy and three changes in ownership, Lamborghini came under the corporate umbrella of the Chrysler Corporation in 1987. The American company failed to return the automaker to profitability and sold it to Indonesian interests in 1994. Lamborghini's lack of success continued through the 1990s, until the company was sold in 1998 to Audi, a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group (a German automotive concern). Audi's ownership marked the beginning of a period of stability and increased productivity for Lamborghini, with sales increasing nearly tenfold over the course of the 2000s, peaking in record sales in 2007 and 2008. The world financial crisis in the late 2000s negatively affected luxury car makers worldwide, and saw Lamborghini's sales drop back to pre-2006 levels.

Assembly of Lamborghini cars continues to take place at the automaker's ancestral home in Sant'Agata Bolognese, where engine and automobile production lines run side-by-side at the company's single factory. Fewer than 3,000 cars roll off the production line each year. The flagship V12-powered Murciélago coupé and roadster were discontinued at the end of 2010. Its successor, the Lamborghini Aventador, was released on 28 February 2011.

Origin
Automobili Lamborghini was founded by Ferruccio Lamborghini, the child of viticulturists from the comune (township) of Renazzo di Cento, Province of Ferrara, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. After serving as a mechanic in the Regia Aeronautica, during World War II, Lamborghini went into business building tractors out of leftover military hardware from the war effort. By the mid-1950s, Lamborghini's tractor company, Lamborghini Trattori S.p.A., had become one of the largest agricultural equipment manufacturers in the country. He was also the owner of a successful gas heater and air conditioning manufacturer.

Lamborghini Aventador

Lamborghini's wealth allowed him to cultivate a childhood interest in cars, owning a number of luxury automobiles including Alfa Romeos, Lancias, Maseratis, and a Mercedes Benz. He purchased his first Ferrari, a 250GT, in 1958, and went on to own several more. Lamborghini was fond of the Ferraris, but considered them too noisy and rough to be proper road cars, likening them to repurposed track cars. Lamborghini decided to pursue an automobile manufacturing venture, with the goal of bringing to life his vision of a perfect grand tourer.

1998–present
The financial crisis that gripped Asia in July of that year set the stage for another ownership change. The new chairman of Volkswagen AG, Ferdinand Piëch, grandson of Volkswagen's founder, Ferdinand Porsche, went on a buying spree through 1998, which included the acquisition of Lamborghini for around $110 million. Lamborghini was purchased through Volkswagen's luxury car division, AUDI AG. Audi spokesman Juergen de Graeve told the Wall Street Journal that Lamborghini "could strengthen Audi's sporty profile, and on the other hand Lamborghini could benefit from our technical expertise."

Only five years after leaving American ownership, Lamborghini was now under German control. Yet again, the troubled Italian automaker was reorganized, becoming restructured into a holding company, Lamborghini Holding S.p.A., with Audi president Franz-Josef Paefgen as its chairman. Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. became a subsidiary of the holding company, allowing it to focus specifically on designing and building cars while separate interests took care of the company's licensing deals and marine engine manufacturing. Vittorio Di Capua originally remained in charge, but eventually resigned in June 1999. He was replaced by Giuseppe Greco, another industry veteran with experience at Fiat, Alfa Romeo, and Ferrari. The Diablo's final evolution, the GT, was released, but not exported to the U.S., its low-volume production making it uneconomical to go through the process of gaining emissions and crashworthiness approval.
In much the same way that American ownership had influenced the design of the Diablo, Lamborghini's new German parent played a large role in the creation of the Diablo's replacement. The first new Lamborghini in more than a decade, known internally as Project L140, represented the rebirth of Lamborghini, and was named, fittingly, for the bull that originally sired the Miura line that had inspired Ferruccio Lamborghini almost 40 years before: Murciélago. The new flagship car was styled by Belgian Luc Donckerwolke, Lamborghini's new head of design.

The "Baby Lambo", envisioned in 1997, was introduced in 2003 as the Gallardo.
Under German ownership, Lamborghini found stability that it had not seen in many years. In 2003, Lamborghini followed up the Murciélago with the smaller, V10-equipped Gallardo, intended to be a more accessible and more livable than the Murciélago. In 2007, Wolfgang Egger was appointed as the new head of design of Audi and Lamborghini, replacing Walter de'Silva, who was responsible for the design of only one car during his appointment, the Miura Concept of 2006.

Lamborghini Ankonian concept car

Towards the end of the 2000s, Lamborghini produced a number of revisions of the Murciélago and Gallardo. The Reventón, a limited-edition derivative of the Murciélago featuring revised, angular styling, was released in 2008, with a roadster following the year after.

The final update to the Murciélago came in 2009 with the release of the LP 670–4 SV ("SuperVeloce"). The 4,000th Murciélago was produced in 2010. The car was delivered to China. At the time, the growing Asia-Pacific vehicle market represented 25 percent of Lamborghini's sales.

A slide in Lamborghini's sales that began at a high of 2,580 units in 2007 was attributed to the effects of the world financial crisis. CEO Stephan Winkelmann predicted that poor sales figures for supercars would continue through 2011. Production of the Murciélago ended on 5 November 2010, after a production run of 4,099 cars.

The Lamborghini Aventador has replaced the Lamborghini Murciélago. It was unveiled on 1 March 2011 at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show. The Aventador has a top speed of 349 km/h (217 mph).
At the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show, Lamborghini revealed the Lamborghini Gallardo LP 570-4 Super Trofeo Stradale.