Lamborghini

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Lamborghini is an automotive manufacturer which is famous for its high performance sports cars. The name of the car often resembles the world of bullfighting, as it is one of Ferruccio's favourite sports. Early Lamborghini cars were comfortable grand tourers, while recently, all the models produced are mid engine performance supercars. Although the company doesn't make front engine grand tourer anymore, it still maintains its identity in making road-oriented sportscars rather than track oriented cars like Ferrari. The products are also tested on the public road rather than in the circuit like its competitors. Recently, it is part of the big Volkswagen Group, by the ownage of Audi as its parent company (Which belongs to Volkswagen group). Many components on the recent cars are based on Audi, however, they are still designed and tested in Italy. Sharp angles,sleek styling and elegant proportions are always been the trademark of Lamborghini design language.

1 Origin
2 Early years
3 Chrysler Ownership and Gandini's Final Work
4 Volkswagen Colony
5 Present models
6 Rivals
7 Models
8 Notable Figures

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Origin

Ferruccio Lamborghini, a wealthy owner of a tractor company was a customer of Ferraris and Maseratis. 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, rough, and uncomfortable to be proper road cars, likening them to repurposed track cars. Ferrucio felt that Ferrari could not make a great grand tourer.This makes Ferrucio wanted to make a true grand tourer sports cars that is still comfortable for everyday use rather than racing cars converted into road cars.Prior to founding his company, Lamborghini had commissioned the engineering firm Società Autostar to design a V12 engine for use in his new cars. Lamborghini wanted the engine to have a similar displacement to Ferrari's 3-litre V12; however, he wanted the engine to be designed purely for road use, in contrast to the modified racing engines used by Ferrari in its road cars. Autostar was led by Giotto Bizzarrini, a member of the "Gang of Five" of Ferrari engineers, who had been responsible for creating the famous Ferrari 250 GTO, but left the company in 1961 after founder Enzo Ferrari announced his intention to reorganize the engineering staff.The engine Bizzarrini designed for Lamborghini had a displacement of 3.5 litres, a 9.5:1 compression ratio, and a maximum output of 360 bhp at 9800 rpm.Lamborghini was displeased with the engine's high revolutions and dry-sump lubrication system, both characteristic of the racing engines he specifically did not wish to use; when Bizzarrini refused to change the engine's design to make it more "well-mannered", Lamborghini refused to pay the agreed-upon fee of 4.5 million Italian lire (plus a bonus for every unit of brake horsepower the engine could produce over the equivalent Ferrari engine).but yet not as fast as the saleen s7

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Early years

The Lamborghini 350GTV was designed and built in only four months, in time for an October unveiling at the 1963 Turin Motor Show.[13] Due to the ongoing disagreement with engine designer Giotto Bizzarrini, a working power plant was not available for the prototype car in time for the show. The car went on display in Turin without an engine under its hood; according to lore, Ferruccio Lamborghini had the engine bay filled with bricks so that the car would sit at an appropriate height above the ground. Ferruccio Lamborghini purchased a 46,000 square metres (500,000 sq. ft) property at Via Modena, 12, in the township of Sant'Agata Bolognese, less than 30 kilometres (19 mi) from Cento; deep in the cradle of Italy's automobile industry, the location provided easy access to skilled labor and facilities.Despite the favorable press reviews of the 350GTV, Ferruccio Lamborghini decided to rework the car for production. The production model, which would be called the 350GT, was restyled by Carrozzeria Touring of Milan, and a new chassis was constructed in-house. Bizzarrini's V12 engine would be detuned for mass production, developing only 280 hp rather than the designer's intended 360 bhp.The completed design debuted at the 1964 Geneva Motor Show, once again garnering positive reviews from the press. Production began shortly afterwards, and by the end of the year, cars had been built for 13 customers; Lamborghini sold each car at a loss in order to keep prices competitive with Ferrari's. The 350GT remained in production for a further two years, with a total of 120 cars sold.

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Chrysler Ownership and Gandini's Final Work

In April 1987,Chrysler, which is one of the largest American car manufacturers, took control of Lamborghini after paying out for $ 33 million.According to Jolliffe, the Mimran brothers were the only owners of Lamborghini to ever make money out of the company, having sold it for many times the dollar amount they paid for it six years earlier.At the time, Lamborghini was working on a successor to the Countach, the Diablo. The car's original design had been penned by Marcello Gandini, the veteran who had penned the exterior appearances of the Miura and the Countach while working for coachbuilder, Bertone.However, Chrysler executives, unimpressed with Gandini's work, commissioned the American car-maker's own design team to execute a third extensive redesign of the car's body, smoothing out the trademark sharp edges and corners of Gandini's original design; the Italian was left famously unimpressed with the finished product.The Diablo had been intended for release in time for September 1988, when Lamborghini would celebrate its 25th anniversary; once it was clear that mark would be missed, a final version of the Countach was rushed into production instead.The uptick in fortunes was to be brief; in 1992, sales crashed, as the $239,000 Diablo proved ultimately to be inaccessible to American enthusiasts. With Lamborghini bleeding money, Chrysler decided that the automaker was no longer producing enough cars to justify its investment.

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Volkswagen Colony

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.

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 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.

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

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Present models

Recently, there are only two models in the line up - the Aventador and the Gallardo. Both of them are mid engine supercars rather than practical grand tourers like in the past. The Aventador only comes in one trim, the LP700-4. The Gallardo is offered in LP560-4, LP550-2, and LP570-4 Superleggera (special Edition car). Recent Lamborghini models have All Wheel Drive as standard (except the LP 550-2 which is RWD [1]) and are all mid-engine layouts.

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Rivals

Lamborghini claims that they're not competing with Porsche,as Porsche attract different customers from Lamborghini and the fact that they are owned by the same parent company. Ferrari is probably the main rival.Both Ferrari and Lamborghini are Italian,they're famous for making high performance,2 door sports cars. The entry level Gallardo competes with the newer Ferrari 458 Italia, while the Aventador LP700 competes with Ferrari F12Berlinetta.

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