Lamborghini Miura: The Bull That Launched the Supercar Era
In the early 1960s, Ferruccio Lamborghini was known not for supercars but for tractors and air conditioners. A wealthy Italian industrialist and avid car enthusiast, Ferruccio owned and tinkered with the best grand tourers of the day – Ferrari, Maserati, Jaguar, you name it. Legend has it that after Ferruccio complained about a clunky clutch in his Ferrari, Enzo Ferrari himself snapped that Lamborghini should stick to driving tractors. Whether apocryphal or not, this spicy exchange lit a fire under Ferruccio. As he later put it, “Now I want to make a GT car without faults … a perfect car.” By 1963 he founded Automobili Lamborghini in Sant’Agata Bolognese, assembling a dream team of young engineers – Giotto Bizzarrini (on a consulting basis), Gian Paolo Dallara, Paolo Stanzani, and New Zealander Bob Wallace – poached from Ferrari and Maserati. Ferruccio’s goal was clear: build a better road car than Ferrari, one that offered style, performance, and civility.
