Intervu1

Thoroughbred & Classic Cars, Jan. 1991.

So we want to meet Ferruccio Lamborghini? No problem at all. Unlike the late Enzo Ferrari, the creator of the Miura, the Espada and the Countach is pleased to meet people who appreciate the cars that bear his name, owners and ordinary enthusiasts alike. Ferruccio Lamborghini is a young man of 75, who works Monday to Friday, 6am to 6pm, on his vineyards near Lake Trasimeno in middle Italy. Besides having various minor business interests, he is still president of three factories which produce tractors, air-conditioning equipment and hydraulic systems.

We have to travel 220 miles south from the Lamborghini car factory at Sant'Agata Bolognese to meet the man who shattered Ferrari's domination in the late Sixties. Eventually we turn off the main road and down a dusty country lane which leads us through the vineyards. Cantina (winery) reads a sign, and on the right there appears a hall housing Lamborghinis even more massive than the LM002 off-roader: the tractors which are still built in a joint Swiss/Italian venture.

Next door is Lamborghini's museum. Apart from examples of 350GT, Islero, Espada, Jarama, Urraco, Miura and Countach, there are several Lamborghini tractors displayed here, starting with a rather crude-looking device from the late Forties. But we enter the small office opposite and ask for Il Cavaliere. His private secretary tells us he is out in the fields. "Just drive on; he's expecting you."

Construction work is going on at the end of the dusty road, and a short, stocky man wearing a cowboy's hat is talking things over with the workers. “Ali, so you have arrived! I'm Lamborghini. We are just building a golf course over there," he immediately explains, pointing towards the horizon. "Golf has a big future. The right sport for the right people." I make the mistake of asking Il Cavaliere which architect he chose to design the course. "It's me!" he exclaims, jabbing a thumb at his chest. "I looked at more than 40 golf courses all over the world, from California to Japan. Now I know how to do it myself."

We are totally captivated by this charming man. Ferruccio Lamborghini was born in 1916, the son of poor peasants in a poor country village. By the end of the Sixties, his companies employed about 4,500 people - but a few years later he was heavily in debt. Now, at 75, he is a man of considerable wealth again, who sees no reason to stop working. "When you stop working, you start to die!"

Lamborghini still remains very much a peasant at heart, and is the kindest man we have ever met. After demonstrating a hydraulically powered golf caddy of his own design - "We start production next year" - he invites us back to his flat, sits us down and makes coffee. Yes, Ferruccio Lamborghini is making us coffee! Just imagine Enzo Ferrari making a coffee for visiting journalists in the kitchen of his Fiorano residence...

So what was Lamborghini's first car? "I started motoring soon after the war, with a Fiat Topolino. I went through a large number of them, and soon I began to tune them, taking the displacement up from 500 to 750cc and fitting my own Testa d'Oro head to convert them from side valves to overhead valves." In 1948, Lamborghini and a certain Baglioni entered the first post-war Mille Miglia with a Fiat 750 Testa d'Oro. Their race finished prematurely in an inn near Fano, "which we entered by driving through the wall," according to Lamborghini.

As his wealth increased, the young industrialist turned to Alfa Romeo and Lancia in the early Fifties. "I had an Alfa Romeo 1900 Sprint first and a 1900 Super Sprint later, both of which were quite good. But I preferred the Lancia Aurelia B20. It was no more powerful than the Alfa, but much more sophisticated, more civilised. I had a number of Aurelias, over the years - six or seven, I guess." This was when Lamborghini began running up to seven cars at the same time, so that he could choose a different one every day of the week.

"In 1954 or '55, I got a Mercedes 300SL, the one with the gullwing doors. It was a remarkable car, a very progressive design for its day. No, I did not keep it. After two or three years I sold it to a friend. I had to try something new." Typical of Ferruccio Lamborghini...

"Later on, I had two Maserati 3500GTs. Adolfo Orsi, then the owner of Maserati, was a man I had a lot of respect for: he had started life as a poor boy, like myself. But I did not like his cars much. They felt heavy and did not really go very fast; normally 220kph [138mph], perhaps 230 on a cool day." What about the eight-cylinder cars, the Quattroporte, Mexico, Ghibli? "No, I never tried any of those. When they became available, I already had my own GT, and with my 12-cylinder engine I was playing in the first division - against Ferrari."

Before turning to Ferrari, I asked Lamborghini about the other supercars of the day - Jaguar, for instance. "I only ever had one of those, a very early E-type coupe" (it seems that Lamborghini never drove roadsters or spiders). "It was a very attractive car and I really liked being seen in it! But on the road I found the rear end was rather nervous, even though on paper the rear suspension looked great." Ferruccio demonstrates with his hands how the rear end oversteered to the left, then right, left, right... "But it looked so good. When I had my first car built by Scaglione, I told him that I wanted an Italian version of the E-type."

Why did Lamborghini choose Franco Scaglione? "Well, in the early Sixties there was quite a number of designers and stylists to choose from. But Scaglione arrived at my place in a big shiny Mercedes, immaculately dressed and accompanied by a breathtakingly beautiful secretary. ‘Your car will be ready in a week,’ he told me. So I gave him the job. In the end my car was bodied in a ramshackle hut that hardly measured three or four metres long."

Did Lamborghini ever try an Aston Martin, a DB4, say, of that period? "Yes, but I did not like it." I look surprised. The DB Astons are considered great supercars of the Fifties and Sixties; even James Bond had one... "Perhaps you are right, but I did not like it. The one I tried felt very much like an English version of the Maserati 3500GT: upright and old fashioned, noisy and choppy."