Lamborghini Wasn’t Supposed to Exist

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Hey, how you doing, everybody?

Today we're talking one of the coolest car brands around.

You know them.

You love them.

Ferrari loves to hate them.

It's the one and only Lamborghini.

We're gonna find out how this company started.

How did Ferruccio Lamborghini go from building tractors

to building some of the baddest cars on the planet?

We're gonna find out.

Let's get into it.

Ah!

1963, Maranello, Italy.

Ferruccio Lamborghini, founder of Lamborghini Trattori,

is dissatisfied with his Ferrari 250 GT,

and he needs Ferrari to know.

He can look past the noisy interior and rough ride,

but the car's clutch is a thorn in his side.

To Ferruccio, this clutch is inferior

and has no place being in a top-of-the-line sports coupe.

In fact, he's had to bring it to Maranello

multiple times to be rebuilt.

Ferruccio sits down with Enzo Ferrari

with a simple request.

Maybe consider redesigning his car's clutch?

This does not sit well with Il Commandatore,

and the meeting soon erupts into a shouting match.

Then, Enzo mutters a few words that would change the future

of the Italian sports car industry forever.

Stick to making tractors.

How did Ferruccio get his start making tractors,

then pivot to supercars?

Which Lamborghini model was the first to beat a Ferrari?

And how did the company survive

so many financial disasters?

Grab an espresso and buckle up.

This week, PASCAS on Lamborghini.

["PASCAS"]

Welcome back to PASCAS, everybody.

My name is Nall, and Sykes joined

by Bart Bidlingmeyer.

What's up?

Hey guys, how you doing?

And Joe Weber.

Spaghetti alla bucatini.

Those are two types of spaghetti, one of my sayings.

I thought you...

Spaghetti alla bucatini.

I tried, guys.

Well, you do...

Spaghetti is my favorite.

What you do is you take the spaghetti

and you put it inside the patini.

That's spaghetti alla bucatini, wow.

Very high in it.

Do you know any Italian, Joe?

I know, I know this one guy, Giuseppe.

I called Joseph, our editor, Giuseppe, and he goes,

that doesn't even mean Giuseppe, and I go, yeah, it does.

I know Italian from...

I know Italian that's been like...

It's like Spanglish, just from my grandma and, you know.

In Italian?

In Italian.

But we have a bunch of little isms that we say

in our family, like, gulufiduzu,

which means like ass face.

Every...

It's basically you take an Italian word

and you put a U on the end

and that's like a Sicilian ism.

But for the longest time, my great-grandma

called the bathroom, the Baccauzzi.

We're like, oh, that just means bathroom in Italian.

And then we realized that she was saying back house

with an accent.

So like, out house.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

Nice.

Yeah, but yeah, we say like,

Asjadu is like heartburn.

Oh, I got Asjadu from the beat balls.

We say like, I don't know,

there's like, I can't think of them now,

but in the moment, yeah.

There's probably like 40, 50 of them that I say regularly

and Emily's like, what'd you just say?

Baccauzzi.

And you, Bart, do you know any Italian?

Just pasta.

What's your favorite pasta, Bart?

I really like bucatini.

Bucatini is awesome.

I really like a pappardelle.

I was gonna say, that's my second favorite.

Dude, that's such a good-

Nice white noodle.

Yeah.

It's like Italian Patsy U.

There's also, I think it's something

between a fusilli and a bucatini.

It's a hollow curved, real tight-

What's that, ridges?

There is one.

There's so many.

I know.

I do like the one with ridges,

but also there's the one without.

And also just an angel hair,

Primavera would be,

that's just very good with a shrimp.

Angel hair is pretty low on my list.

Yeah.

But I think everything's got the right,

you need to use a different sauce

and different ingredients with each pasta,

which I, so like, yeah.

I love the-

I enjoy the freshness and simplicity

of an angel hair where it's,

especially when you cut it on to break it up

into little pieces before you cook it.

No.

No, no, no.

I think the best noodle for mac and cheese

is the curved, the corkscrew one.

With the ridges.

Yeah, yeah.

It holds the most sauce.

Yeah.

The ridges hold sauce.

Yeah.

That they do.

This is not a pasta podcast though.

This is a history podcast.

This is what we're talking about the-

Pasta cast.

Pasta gassa.

Ooh, okay.

We are talking about Lamborghini today,

so maybe we should go around and say

what our favorite Lamborghini is.

Yeah, sounds good.

Coontosh.

Coontosh?

Yeah.

Okay.

Because of everything, from what it symbolizes,

I know it's not, at the time,

it was certainly technologically pretty impressive.

Not so much anymore.

Yeah.

But I think, yeah, just, such a cool,

and that's again, that was what was the poster.

Right.

You know, like, wow.

I think everything since then,

of course, beautiful, wonderful cars,

but they all kind of, they needed that.

They needed the Coontosh.

Absolutely.

It's kind of funny how they've been basically

the same car for the last 50 years.

You know, my favorite is-

Well, sorry, I mean, in that way,

like the Coontosh is almost like the 9-11

of Lamborghini, if you will.

Like that's the, that side profile,

that shape, like the mid-engine,

just philosophy has like trickled all the way down

into the, what do they even call it these days?

Their flagship.

Oh, Rivolto?

Rivolto.

Yeah.

Nice, Joe.

Yeah, a really good memory, by the way.

Thanks for random stupid shit.

But what I meant is like,

it's been the same wedge shape with scissor doors

and a V10 or a V12.

V12, yeah.

For the longest time.

It's just been so good.

And then like the biggest jump in technological advancement

was all-wheel drive, and that made it so good.

So I think my favorite, just my heart wants to say

the Diablo, but I think the Mercilago

with a gated shifter is the best one.

I'm with you on that.

When I was like 12 years old,

me and my buddy Andrew would be playing

Need for Speed Carbon, listening to Dane Cook on CD.

And I was like, I want to be a stand-up comedian.

I want to move to LA.

I will get rich and famous,

and then I will buy a Lamborghini Mercilago.

Oh, that's fun.

So like, this is the part where he humps the stool.

Yeah.

I'll hump a stool too.

And then get my Lamborghini.

It's as simple as that.

Yeah.

So anyway, but the Mercilago is still my favorite one.

I remember when you got on stage

and you humped that stool and everybody was like,

boo, we've seen it.

But he still got the Mercilago.

I did do stand-up like three times.

That was a lot of fun.

Yeah.

You got a good reaction too.

Yeah, dude.

Yeah, at the belly room, at the comedy store.

Yeah.

Crushed it, dude.

You did.

That was still chasing that high.

That's what it is.

You're like, you go out night after night

and you're like, I just want that first big laugh.

Let's get into the history of Lamborghini.

On April 28th, 1916,

Ferruccio Lamborghini was born

in a small farming town outside Modena

in northern Italy.

Ferruccio's parents were grape farmers,

which meant he spent his formative years

working in the family vineyard,

helping grow and harvest grapes for local wineries.

But as time went on,

Ferruccio became increasingly more interested

in machines than grapes.

In fact, he would regularly disassemble

perfectly functioning farm equipment

and put them back together just to see how they worked.

As he reflected later in life, quote,

from a very young age,

I knew how to fix anything that moved or didn't move.

Inspired by his interest in all things auto,

18-year-old Ferruccio chose to study engineering

at Fratelli Tadea Technical School near Bologna.

He wasn't the most brilliant all-around student,

but Ferruccio's passion for experimenting with engines

combined with his farm bread practical thinking skills

proved to be more than enough to excel

at the most important thing,

learning how to build automotive machines.

As he finished college, Lamborghini's mechanical towns

turned out to be even more useful than he expected.

World War II brought with it the desperate need

for guys on the ground

who could repair broken war machines.

Enter Ferruccio, who was drafted

into the Royal Italian Air Force

and assigned to be a mechanic on the Isle of Roads.

Which I didn't understand.

That was under, I mean, still under Greek Roads.

Very close to Turkey.

Oh, is it? Okay.

Yeah, because the Axis powers as some appeasement,

the British agreed to let like the Nazis,

and I guess the Italians take over the Mediterranean

to kind of like keep them busy.

This is your stuff.

Wow.

You know, they were preparing to defend Britain

and their allies.

Like when I went to Crete,

I got to, I took a ride with a taxi driver.

He was taking my wife and I to a beach

and he actually showed us a few different options

and gave us like a history lesson basically

of the island.

It was awesome.

That's really cool.

Apostolos was the driver's name.

And he explained that, you know,

a lot of these Greek Isles,

like if they weren't under Greek control,

like, you know,

they kind of have their own national identity,

like Cretians consider themselves Cretian

rather than Greek.

Right.

Greek Cyprus has Greek Cypriots,

but they also have Turkish Cypriots.

Interesting.

Yeah.

So anyway, like long history,

like the Nazis were not the first people

to occupy these islands.

Like all, a lot of these islands have been occupied

by many different Ottomans for them.

The Italians.

Just a bunch of couches everywhere.

Yeah.

And the Italians here in Rhodes.

So, yeah, anyway.

So Ferruccio Lamborghini stationed on Rhodes

being one of those Italians.

During his time in the war,

Ferruccio worked on everything

from transport trucks to massive generators

and often had to scavenge parts

and it improvised repairs

which only expanded his mechanical knowledge.

Even after Mussolini was overthrown

in Italy's switched sides in 1943

and Ferruccio was taken prisoner by the Nazis,

his experience in the shop

proved to be incredibly valuable

as he avoided the horrors of grueling work camps

by being assigned to maintain machinery for the Germans.

I don't really know like the Italian side of World War II

as much as I should.

I don't mean either.

But I didn't realize that Mussolini fell

like a couple of years before the war ended.

Mussolini was overthrown.

I didn't know that either.

Following the end of World War II

and his release from captivity,

Ferruccio Lamborghini returned home

and opened an engineering workshop.

Italy was in shambles after the war

and they desperately needed their agricultural industry

to get back on track.

So Ferruccio decided to return to his farming roots

and focus on creating tractors

out of old military equipment.

Lamborghini Trattori was born.

Like a baby.

Oh, nice.

He was born.

Two years later in 1948,

Lamborghini debuted his new machine, the Garioca.

This ultra-modern tractor could not only quote,

pull twice as hard at half the size according to Lamborghini

but also maximize gas mileage

thanks to its new fuel atomizer,

which started with gas, then switched to a distillate fuel.

I don't know, that just seems like a carb, doesn't it?

Yeah, but it sounds like it must be mixing

maybe ethanol with gasoline.

You know, it's making something before it hits the carb.

Checking quotes atomized it, I think it's a gimmicky name.

I don't have the answer, but that's what it sounds like.

Sounds good to me, Bart.

Well, yeah, distillate fuel would be ethanol, right?

By 1949, Lamborghini's two, three and four cylinder tractors

were being used across Italy.

Along with their revolutionary power and fuel efficiency,

the machines also had interchangeable components

which helped with a variety of farm and construction work.

Business boomed for Ferruccio throughout the 1950s

as Lamborghini Trattori became an industrial powerhouse

in Italy and the rest of Europe.

It was during this run of success

when Ferruccio's taste for the finer things led him

amassing a collection of the best sports cars of the time.

In his garage, he had Alfa Romeo's, Lancia's,

a Mercedes 300 SL, he had two Maserati 3,500 GTs

and a Jaguar E-type and of course, a few Ferraris.

Lamborghini admired Ferraris but after the engineer

he also had a few ideas for how to improve them.

In an interview, Ferruccio did in 1991,

he said, quote, all my Ferraris had clutch problems.

When you drove them normally everything was fine

but when you're going hard,

the clutch would slip under acceleration.

It just wasn't up to the job.

Lamborghini modified his 250 GT extensively, quote,

I bought a bigger clutch from Borgen Beck

and had it fitted in the tractor factory workshop.

We then discarded Ferrari cylinder heads.

I had them replaced by heads of our own design

with twin camshafts.

That's nuts.

Then we put the engine back in the 250 GT

and fitted it with six horizontally mounted carburetors.

Damn.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

That's crazy.

We would be doing 230, 240 kph is about 150 miles an hour

and then we would start to pull away from them.

My Ferrari was at least 25 kph faster than theirs

thanks to our four cam conversion.

Good Lord.

Lamborghini certainly had solutions to offer.

So in 1963, he drove his 250 GT 30 minutes

to Ferrari headquarters to talk to the man himself.

From the interview, Lamborghini recalled, quote,

the problem with the clutch was never cured.

So I decided to talk to Enzo Ferrari.

I had to wait for him for a very long time.

Ferrari, your car's.

He was making buccatini.

I'll, I'll, I'll spaghetti.

Spaghetti.

Ferrari, your cars are rubbish.

I complained.

Ilca mandatory was furious.

Lamborghini, you may be able to drive a tractor,

but you will never be able to handle a Ferrari properly.

You stick to building tractors.

You don't know anything about sports cars.

Oh my God.

I feel like he went to, to kind of help him out.

You know, like, hey, you know, I did these things

and I think you might.

And then I feel like Ferrari took offense to that

and that's how it escalated to.

Yeah, well, your car is a crap.

Yeah.

And well, I mean, Enzo famously had a very big ego

was, was, you know, a narcissist.

I wonder if the shoe is on the other foot.

Right.

If Ferrari came and was like, your tractors suck.

Like, can you switch this up?

Would Lamborghini be as receptive as he thinks?

I have a feeling, probably not.

Probably not.

These are some fiery Italian, you know, entrepreneurs

coming out of post-war Italy.

Like they're just going to argue.

Lamborghini said, quote, this was the point

when I finally decided to make a perfect car.

After a showdown with Enzo,

Ferruccio wasted no time in following through

with his lofty threat to make a sports car

that could rival Ferrari.

Consider this, Ferrari is at the pinnacle

of sports car manufacturing with cutting-edge technology

trickling down from their championship

winning mortar sports team.

And this tractor manufacturer has convinced himself

that he has what it takes to make a better car.

One thing Ferruccio knew you wanted to do differently

than his new rival was to avoid the money pit

that is high-level motorsports.

Quote, I didn't care much about racing, said Lamborghini.

I cared about building something better, something perfect.

This was the last time Enzo ever said a word to Ferruccio.

In May of 1963, Lamborghini opened a 12-acre manufacturing

plant in the Santa Agata Bolognese

and named it Automobili Ferruccio Lamborghini S.P.A.

This plant is located between the cities

of Modena and Bologna in a region of Italy

known as Tere di Motori or Engine Country.

It's funny that every country has, like, Motown.

Motown or what was the Russian one where Lada was built?

It was like Motori or something like that.

It was named Engine Country because Maserati, Ducati,

and Ferrari were all headquartered around the area.

Ferruccio needed engineers and lucky for him,

he didn't have to look far because it turned out

that he wasn't the only guy that Enzo Ferrari

had managed to piss off.

Shortly after their infamous meeting,

a group of Ferrari's most trusted designers and engineers,

legends Giotta Bizzarini and Carlo Citi among them,

approached Enzo and told him that his wife, Laura,

was getting too involved in his business affairs.

It didn't take long for Enzo to decide who to support.

I actually know a Laura Ferrari.

Really?

Yeah, I was an improv group with her for a long time.

Any relationship?

No.

Oh.

Enzo promptly fired all the engineers on the spot,

which was some good fortune for Lamborghini.

With a factory built and a stable

of experienced mechanical minds on hand,

Ferruccio-

Why don't you just stick to building tractors?

You'll never be able to build a car.

You don't have the right people.

Here's the people.

Not great, man.

Yeah.

Ferruccio just needed the right designer.

With tons of brilliant designers in Italy at the time,

the decision came down to pure vibes.

Lamborghini said of Franco Scaglioni,

quote, he arrived at my place in a big shiny Mercedes,

immaculately dressed and accompanied

by a breathtakingly beautiful secretary,

quote, your car will be ready in a week, he told me.

So I gave him the job.

Scaglioni penned the design for the GTV concept

while Giotta Bizzarini built the engine.

Dude, what a player.

Just going to a job interview.

Yeah.

With some high candy.

Come on, dude.

I'm still on the guitar guys being turned on by Les Pauls.

Look at the curves.

He got out of Mercedes with a nice suit

and a Les Paul on his shoulder.

He was John Bonamassa.

We'll be right back after these messages.

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Now back to the show.

The Serene, who himself had worked on the Ferrari 250 GT

which was the catalyst for this entire situation

designed a three and a half liter aluminum V12.

It featured four valves per cylinder,

six downdraft Weber carburetors

and a four cam design which is a poke

at Ferrari's single overhead cam per bank.

The prototype engine Beatsudini developed

can make 400 horsepower and rev to a staggering

11,000 RPM.

Holy shit.

In the 60s.

So, okay.

I'm stuck on the overhead cam thing.

Okay.

Explain to me like I'm a huge dumb idiot.

Okay.

Why couldn't you just have more lobes

on a single overhead cam

instead of having two different cams

controlling the rockers?

You know what I'm saying?

I don't know this engine

but you can also have more exhaust port.

Your exhaust valve and your intake valve

you can have two of each.

I don't know if that's what you did.

That's what I'm assuming that there's

there's a two intake exhaust.

Yeah, because there's four valves per cylinder.

So then the cams that are controlling

the valves going up and down.

Why do you need two cams?

Just to take pressure off of one cam?

Well, because you're going to have

you've got an intake valve

and the exhaust valve that are alternating.

So if you've got two, if you have two cams,

it's to make use of the room of the head

because you've got the holes in it for the cams.

So if you've got the exhaust,

you can have an intake and exhaust valve

on the same side.

You could have an intake and an exhaust

and then on the other side

you can have an intake and an exhaust.

You could also change it up

and just do exhaust on one side.

Exhaust on the other.

But it gives you those more options

so that you can get more airflow

and you can use different timing

depending on which cams you want to...

Okay, that makes sense.

It also...

I mean, depending on which valves.

I don't know what you're saying.

Yeah.

If you were to have one overhead cam

and still four valves per cylinder,

it would kind of limit you

because you'd have to put them pretty close together.

You wouldn't do it because...

You can put them further apart

or play with the spacing if you need to.

Okay, I get it.

A single cam runs down to do push rods.

So you're pushing up on different sides

to push down the valves.

The evolution of that was like,

well, we're going to do overhead cams

so we don't have to use a single cam with push rods.

Now you don't have push rods,

so there's less to fail.

And so all Ferrari did was take that idea

and say we can use more valves now.

So now we have double overhead cam.

Lamborghini said that.

Yes, sorry.

Lamborghini said we can evolve that

to have double overhead cam.

Okay, so Lamborghini just improved on Ferrari's design.

Yes.

Okay.

I mean, literally,

because it was the same designers that worked at Ferrari.

Yeah.

So they're like,

you got a pretty good idea.

Like, let's keep going with that.

Let's follow that and improve upon.

That's cool that they were able to recognize that

and be like, oh, this is,

because Bizarini was the one who developed the Ferrari engine.

Well, I wouldn't even be surprised if Ferrari was like,

stop, this is good, you know?

And like, we have an engine.

So we're going to use this engine.

And I have the sense that that's the kind of boss he was.

Well, yes, he was,

because he was a guy that would pit people against each other

all the time.

And I wonder if he was like,

we have our racing team.

They have their racing engine.

And like, they know what they're doing.

They haven't come up with this.

So like, your idea isn't right now.

Of course, I don't know if that is all conjecture.

It's all conjecture, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Anyway.

And I love a racing engine.

There's more to fail.

Yeah.

So maybe he was like, this is the solution.

We're sticking with it.

Yeah.

Something I do all the time is like, yeah,

it wouldn't surprise me.

And then my brain just says, well, that's how it happened.

But 400 horsepower from an aluminum V12 back in the 60s is crazy.

That's a lot.

The Lamborghini 350GTV debuted in October of 1963

at the Turin Auto Show,

nearly months after the argument with Ferrari.

After the initial.

That's a crazy.

That dude must have been heated.

After the initial reception,

the body design was slightly tweaked

and the engine was detuned for better reliability.

The 350 GT, as it was now called,

made 280 horsepower.

Zero to 60 came in 6.4 seconds,

easily on par with other luxury sports cars of the time.

However, the true victory of this made in model

was its smooth handling and eye catching design.

It really is, I think, stunning.

It's sick.

It looks like something that Mr. Incredible would drive.

Lamborghini was able to achieve such a stunning design

of the 350 GT with aluminum alloy panels

that were mounted directly onto the curvy tube frame body,

which meant the chassis was still very light,

but also very rigid.

The 350 GT was the first car to feature

the famous Lamborghini Bull logo,

which comes from Ferruccio's astrological star sign, Taurus.

Quote, with the 350 GT,

I wanted to show Ferrari that you don't need to be uncomfortable

to go fast, said Ferruccio.

Wow.

Yeah, he said, he must be a Scorpio.

The car was a success.

120 units were sold over the next two years.

Such a tourist thing to say.

Which might not sound like a lot,

but for a company who'd never built a luxury sports car

before, it was fantastic.

The 350 GT established Lamborghini

as an exciting new addition to the world of grand touring cars.

But more importantly, it inspired Ferruccio and his team

to continue to push the limits of design and engineering

on their next model.

Hell yeah.

Which is, any guesses?

I mean, I read the script, so.

Okay, well.

The bark though, barking guess.

I don't know the timeline.

Well, you're going to know.

Please.

You're going to know.

On the heels of their successful debut,

Lamborghini wanted to make an even bigger splash

in their design.

To further improve balance and handling on the road,

chief engineer Gian Paola Dallara

dreamed of building a Formula One inspired mid-engine

supercar.

Mid-engine?

I didn't know that Dallara did it too.

Either.

Dallara famously made chassis for Formula One.

They make a lot of chassis still.

Yeah.

For a lot of spec racing series.

The problem was that Ferruccio didn't think

a mid-engine car was practical for road use.

However, the ambitious young team

worked on the chassis in secret

and eventually presented Ferruccio with a

near-complete rolling prototype.

What's the Italian word for skunk?

I don't know.

What did your grandmother say?

Skunku.

After a few moments of eager anticipation,

he gave them to go ahead to build the prototype.

Which, again.

He said, fine.

Build it, but make sure it works.

Nice.

I feel like it's a difference of

leaning on people, pitting them against

each other.

Or understanding what you want

and how to allow the people who know how

to do it to give it to you.

Yeah.

Trust your crew.

Yeah.

Designed by 20...

Also, don't f***ing worry about race cars.

Because that's...

Yeah.

Designed by 27-year-old Marcello Gandini,

the Miura named after...

I was going to say the Miura.

...named after the famous Spanish fighting

bull breeder Don Eduardo Miura

was ultra-sleek.

It had pop-up headlights and a unique

low-profile stance.

Yeah, this guy makes the bulls f***.

They came with cars after him.

It's...

Yeah.

There's this, like...

It's not easy.

Romantic view that he names them

all after, like, fighting bulls.

But it's just, like...

Yeah.

A guy that owned a bull.

Yeah.

He makes them bang.

He puts on that big plastic glove.

Yeah.

When the P400, as the car was called at the time,

unveiled in Geneva in 1966,

the car made an immediate impact.

Its stunning design and stated performance

stole the show and orders poured in

before production even began.

Quote,

The Miura shocked the world,

said automotive historian Carl Ludwigzen.

It made Lamborghini a serious name overnight.

The funny thing was, though,

Lamborghini didn't even have a finished car.

The one displayed at the show was assembled

just days before,

when they placed a prototype body

on a rolling chassis.

Despite the last-minute shenanigans,

the Miura changed everything.

And today is seen as being the first

supercar ever.

As Jeremy Clarkson said,

Quote,

The Miura is not just a car,

it's a turning point.

After the Miura's success,

Lamborghini doubled down on research and development

and appointed Paolo Stanzani

as technical director in 1968.

Stanzani's first model was the Espada,

a V12 four-seater GT car,

and theorama, another front-engine GT.

However, these projects strained Lamborghini's finances,

and they needed a new halo model

to generate excitement

and showcase some new technology.

Yeah, those are like the two models that no one

even really...

I like that you guys ever been in a Miura?

No, I've seen one.

James rode in one.

Yeah, that guy...

I mean, that was a while ago.

I was like early, early.

He took me for a spin.

Was it cool?

Yeah.

But it's just crazy to get into.

Is it tiny?

It looks amazing.

You see it in person.

You're like, oh, man.

And especially if you put yourself in the shoes

of someone when they butted.

But it's just very difficult to get in.

Once you're in there, it's comfortable.

You're almost lying down.

It's so low.

It's pretty cool.

It is fairly close to the dimensions

of that launch of Stratos Zero.

Not dimensions, but like the...

Oh, wait.

Yeah, I would say this.

Not the Zero, the Stratos production car.

Looks very similar.

And it just seemed like you'd have to lay down

on it to actually drive it.

I think the craziest thing about that car

is that the engine is mounted sideways.

Oh, it's like transverse.

Transverse mounted V12.

That's crazy.

Yeah, really weird.

That's how they made it fit.

Yeah.

By the early 1970s, automotive technology

had caught up with the Lamborghini Miura.

Sure, it was beautiful, but it had its downsides.

You had poor rear visibility,

unstable high-speed handling,

and a very hot and tight cabin.

Ferruccio wanted the next car

to be more stable and comfortable,

but also radical and completely futuristic.

So work began on project LP112.

Unlike the Miura's transverse V12,

the LP112 featured a longitudinally

mounted V12 positioned ahead of the rear axle.

It also had a unique gearbox placement

in front of the engine with a drive shaft

running back through the oil pan,

which allowed for better weight distribution

and a shorter wheelbase.

That's crazy.

Interesting.

So you got the engine.

This is not transverse.

No.

This is longitudinally mine.

Yeah.

And then the gearbox,

it's a rear mid-engine.

The gearbox is in front of it,

going to, I would imagine, a stick shift.

And then the drive shaft goes back through the oil pan.

That's really weird.

I would imagine there's some sort of loss of power

if you're just kind of snaking it back.

Maybe.

That's very interesting.

I did not know that about this car.

I mean, I don't know what this car is.

Once again, Lamborghini called upon Marcello Gandini

to design this futuristic machine.

His design would go on to be Lamborghini's

signature shape across all their future models.

The concept was stunning.

It had a radical wedge shape with an ultra-low stance

and sharp angles.

It was the first Lamborghini to feature scissor doors.

The prototype, called the Kuntas LP500,

premiered at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show

to a completely stunned crowd.

Road and track said, quote,

it looks like it could fly and sounds like it already has.

The Kuntas is more than a car.

It's a declaration of war on the ordinary.

I'm actually not really sure what a plane looks like anymore.

Motor trend said, quote, holy s***, what the f*** is that?

They're like, oh, you speak Italian.

Marcello Gandini said, quote, we worked at night

and we were all tired.

So we would joke around to keep our morale up.

There was a profiler working with us

and he performed all the little jobs.

He spoke almost only Piedmontese.

One of his most frequent exclamations was Kuntas,

which literally means plague, contagion,

and is actually used more to express amazement

or even admiration, like goodness.

He had this habit.

Like tabarnac.

It's hilarious that there's just a bunch of dudes

working on this car, screwed around,

one of them's in there just like...

Keep saying Kuntas.

Let me just call it that.

That's pretty good.

It is a good, yeah.

Despite all the excitement,

Lamborghini still had a problem.

They had to make a usable production model

of the Kuntas, a process that took years

because a number of changes the design team

was forced to make.

The prototype's aluminum monocoque

was swapped with a steel space frame,

Nacoducks were reshaped,

and the design bulked up for durability.

Cooling issues forced the addition of

massive side air intakes

and a periscope style rear view slot

was added to improve visibility.

What?

That's sick.

These timely, expensive changes placed

immense financial strain on Lamborghini,

stress which would only get worse

in the coming years.

In the early 1970s,

volatile markets and numerous wars

significantly changed the global landscape.

Everything from gas prices to manufacturing

capabilities were negatively affected,

and the oil crisis of 1973

categorically rocked Lamborghini's

already precarious financial situation.

In the midst of the chaos,

Ferruccio sold 51% of the company

to Swiss businessman Georges Henry Rossetti.

Rossetti took over,

and the production version of the Kuntas...

Georges Henry.

That's probably right.

There's an S at the end of George here.

Georges Henry Rossetti.

Yeah, Georges Henri.

Georges Henri Rossetti took over,

and the production version of the Kuntas

was finally released in 1974,

featuring essentially just a bored out

version of their previous V12.

Now at four liters it made 370 horsepower,

with a curb weight of around 3,000 pounds

this car was incredibly ahead of its time.

However, being iconic doesn't guarantee

financial success.

Even though the Kuntas sold well,

there are only 157 units

initially produced,

and the company wasn't set up

for a shift to mass production.

All those years of R&D had paid off

in terms of their final product,

but the time and money they sacrificed

basically offset the financial gains

the Kuntas brought in.

By late 1974,

Ferruccio Lamborghini found himself

completely disillusioned with the automotive industry

and decided to sell his remaining shares.

Quote,

I was tired of the car business.

I wanted to return to my roots,

to my land,

to my vineyards.

I had nothing more to prove.

And then,

I killed Enzo Ferruccio.

After Ferruccio's departure,

Lamborghini went through a litany

of managerial changes

and more financial difficulties.

Georges-Jean-Rizetti failed to write the ship

and by 1978,

Lamborghini filed for bankruptcy.

Fortunately in 1981,

two Swiss brothers Jean-Claude

and Mimran swooped in

and bought the brand.

To keep the company afloat,

the Mimran brothers decided to limit new models

and instead release new and improved versions

of the Kuntas.

It's a pretty sound logic.

You did all the R&D,

you just stick with it.

We haven't said this yet,

but they basically used the same version of the V12

for so long.

They just kept bumping up the displacement,

making it more reliable.

It's not like modernizing.

But the same basic principle

went into most of these engines.

It's like a Chevy small block.

We'll be right back after these messages.

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Now back to the show.

The LP500S,

which featured a bigger 4.8 liter V12,

was released in 1982,

followed by the 450 horsepower

LP5000 Quattro Vivoli

in 1985,

which bumped displacement up to 5.2 liters.

All the while,

the Countach started to look more and more like a spaceship.

First with fender flares,

then a big wing.

The wing's sick.

Then there's like the 50th,

was it, 25th anniversary edition.

These versions of the Countach helped Lamborghini

explode onto the pop culture scene

in the 1980s.

Movies and TV shows like Miami Vice

captured the imagination of teenage boys

and Uber rich car collectors alike.

Outside of the Countach,

Lambo's most bonkers release of the 1980s

was something entirely different,

but equally shocking.

Originally designed as a military prototype,

the LM002

was a luxury off-road SUV

powered by a Countach 5.2 liter V12.

The Rambo Lambo

as it came to be nicknamed

was genuinely obscene.

The 6,000 pound behemoth

boasted 444 horsepower

and can go 0-60 in 7.8 seconds.

The interior was fully leather

and had particularly strong air conditioning

which came in handy for customers

like the Saudi Royal Family

and Sodom Hussein's son Uday.

But even if Lamborghini was still

making eye-catching vehicles,

their accounting was still a mess.

In 1987, the Mimran brothers

decided enough was enough

and sold Lamborghini to the Chrysler Corporation

to welcome the Italians with open arms.

Quote,

We're not here to Americanize Lamborghini,

said Leigh Iacocca.

We're here to unleash it.

That's so...

Why does Chrysler talk like that?

You know?

Now this makes a lot of sense.

If Kineskis and the other Dodge leadership

I think they're just trying to be

Iacocca.

That's a good point.

Yeah, because you have to talk like a citizen.

Our new charger isn't here

to restrain you with its EV.

It's meant to unleash you.

Yeah.

Electrify your senses.

They just have to talk like...

It's not a mandate for electric.

It's a mandate for freedom.

Yeah.

After releasing the Kuntas 25th anniversary edition

in 1988,

Chrysler began on its successor,

Project 132, which would go on to be

Lamborghini Diablo.

Released in January of 1990,

the Diablo stayed true to the brand's

signature scissor doors and V12 engine,

but featured smoother styling

and a larger cabin.

Though more refined than the Kuntas,

the Diablo still had incredible power.

Its 5.7 liter V12 produced

492 horsepower

and made the Diablo the first

Lamborghini to break 200 miles per hour.

The Kuntas, I think,

is the cassette tape

that was compact disc.

That's really good.

The Diablo VT version,

released in 1993,

introduced all-wheel drive

to a road-going Lamborghini for the first time.

Despite plenty of buzz about the Diablo,

Chrysler didn't think Lamborghini

was growing fast enough to justify long-term investment,

so they sold the company

to an Indonesian investment group

called Megatech in 1994.

That's such a 90s name.

Yeah.

From a 90s movie.

Yeah.

You name your company

just some arbitrary

name.

The family business is going to be sold to Megatech.

We can't buy it.

The gang at Megatech

decided to lean into the Diablo platform,

producing a number of variants throughout the 90s.

And adding quite a bit of

tech.

A more lightweight...

A mega amount of tech.

The more lightweight and powerful version came in 1994,

with the Diablo SE30.

In a 95, the Diablo SV

featured a rear-wheel-drive version

that prioritized raw power

over comfort.

And this one has a really cool script

on the side.

Super sick.

Like on a Dixie

paper cup.

Does that stand for a soup of aloché

or anything like that? Probably.

Spaghetti,

a convertible

VT Roadster also appeared

that year alongside race-specific

versions like the SVR

built for a one-make racing series.

Late in the 90s, Lamborghini introduced

more racing.

Late in the 90s, Lamborghini introduced

more extreme versions like the Diablo GT,

a track-focused road car

with 575 horsepower

and advanced aerodynamics.

Even though the Diablo was a success,

Megatech continued to lose money.

It was producing only a few hundred cars

a year, and development costs for future models

were becoming unsustainable.

To make matters worse, the 1997 Asian

financial crisis devastated Indonesia's economy.

Megatech faced

pressure to offload foreign assets

like Lamborghini to shore up losses,

and in 1998, decided

to sell Lamborghini to Audi.

Audi's takeover was a game-changer

for the brand. Game-changer.

Game-changer. Like the Chick-Chulat 3.

Game-chulat 3.

Three blades?

Audi

and their parent company Volkswagen

provided the financial stability,

engineering expertise,

and production discipline that

Lambo had lacked basically since its inception.

The first Audi-influenced

Lambo was the Diablo VT6.0.

Released in

2000, the VT6

was engineered with a focus on improved

build quality and refined styling

which showcased a new era for the brand.

Though the Diablo was

Lamborghini's only model throughout

the entire decade, its many iterations

kept it fresh and competitive.

It's like a sea urchin

going into my ear whenever you say that.

And now

with Audi firmly in control.

Sea urchins don't do that.

And now, and with Audi

firmly now in control, a strong foundation

was set for the next generation.

In 2001, Lamborghini launched

its first all-new model under Audi

the Murcielago

with scissor doors, wedge design,

and namesake derived from another

legendary Spanish fighting

bull. It was still very much a Lamborghini

but also more reliable

and well built than its predecessors.

Powered by a 6.2-liter V12

producing 572 horsepower

the Murcielago was fast but

surprisingly stable and user-friendly

and proved that Lamborghini was maturing

under Audi leadership. The real statement

came in 2003 with the introduction of

the Gallardo. Available in all-wheel

drive or rear-wheel drive, coupe

or spider formats, gated manual

or with paddle shifters, the Gallardo

also offered a more practical 5-liter

V10 and was priced far lower

than the Murcielago. As a result, the Gallardo

became the best-selling Lamborghini at the time

with special editions like the Superleggera

and LP564

keeping the model

fresh until the end of its production run

in 2013. That's later than I

thought. Yeah. Meanwhile, the Murcielago

evolved into the LP640

in 2006 and the

670 horsepower SV

in 2009. I think Top Gear

made a segment with one of these things

out in Dubai somewhere with like

one of those orange, that orange car

very, very cool.

I think that's

just the sickest ever. And the chocolate

here is so good.

It's got like phylo-dough and pistachio.

During

this time, Lamborghini became a legitimate

competitor to Ferrari and appearances

in movies like the Fast and the Furious

franchise and the Batman trilogy

only increased Lambo's global popularity.

After the success of the Gallardo

and the Murcielago, Lamborghini unveiled

the Aventador in 2011

featuring a new 6.5-liter V12

producing 690 horsepower

the Aventador, named after

another famous fighting bull

had a carbon fiber monocoque chassis

and debuted Lamborghini's now signature

hexagonal design pattern.

This is, like, Aventador sounds

like a cool bull thing

bull-related thing, you know?

What is the bullfighter called?

The Matador.

Matador. It kind of sounds like Matador.

Ferrari should come out with a car called

the Matador.

That's the guy who gets gored.

Not if he wins.

It's just good at avoiding other cars.

And then he stabs the hump

and then everyone cheers.

To replace the Gallardo

as its V10 entry model

the company released the Huracan

in 2014 with a dual clutch

transmission, advanced electronics

and refined driving dynamics

the Huracan was even more driver friendly

than the Gallardo, but still scary fast.

High performance versions like the

Huracan Buda Farmante push the car

to Nurburgring lap records.

Together the Aventador and Huracan

brought Lamborghini into a new

golden age of high performance road cars

and gave the company even more freedom

to push the boundaries of design and power.

By the time 2018

rolled around, SUVs

had become one of the most popular car types

for at least 20 years. Porsche had proven

with the Cayenne that a luxury SUV

could be a cash cow without

sacrificing brand integrity. We talked

about that a couple weeks ago in our Porsche series.

It pulled it off wallously.

Though purists scoffed at the idea

initially Lamborghini decided to develop

their first ever SUV

the Urus.

Powered by a 641 horsepower

twin turbo V8, this crossover

SUV combined Lamborghini performance

with Audi tech and luxury.

0-60 comes in 3.5 seconds

and it handles like a sports car, but it also has room

for up to 5 people. This is a phone car

Maserati

has their

SUV

the toenail

but

there's other

this level

supercar SUV

and none of them come close

to the Urus.

I think the pro sangue

is pretty close and the red

is amazing.

The reason I'm saying is for the handling

of it.

I don't drive it the way

I would have to to know this

but everybody says

it feels like it is a

it doesn't feel like it's an SUV

it feels like it's a Lamborghini

whereas the other ones are like it feels like a nice

SUV that can zip.

Lamborghini lent us a Urus

a couple

like a year and a half ago.

About a year ago.

I took it off the stunt road

it was, dude, yeah, it hauls ass

it's really planted for an SUV

and also

driving to work and stuff

I just feel

I'm not the target audience

in that car I think. I felt very

but also people say that it snow

ice, rock

it actually does everything

and still

feels like it's a track.

I would love to put some 34 inch tires

on one of those

The hack is to get an RSQ8

because it's

basically the same car

for like $120,000 less

Is it really that much less?

Yeah. Oh yeah.

I think the RSQ8 is

a little above 150

but then like the Urus is like 300

or something. Much like the Cayenne did for

Porsche, the Urus was a massive

commercial success and quickly became the brand's

best-selling model. At the same time

Lamborghini began developing hybrid and

electrified platforms. The Scion

FKP37 which debuted

in 2019 was the first

hybrid Lamborghini. It was a limited

production V12 hypercar with

super-capacitor technology instead of a

traditional and themed ion battery.

So I think super capacitors

they can hold energy

really big amounts of energy but not for very

long, right? But they

release them way faster than a normal

battery. So you're draining it

way quicker but it's like more power.

They can't store it.

Right.

But they can't like hold it

for as long as a battery. Yeah I think so.

If you drink a ton of water all at once

you gotta go really quick.

If you just sip throughout your day

you're not gonna have to go to the end of it.

That's a good tip.

Exactly. Lamborghini had made it clear

new technology would be embraced but power

would not be sacrificed.

Proof of that promise came in 2022

when Lamborghini unveiled the Aventador's

replacement, the Rovuelto

with an even more extreme design full of

sharp angles, Y shaped LED

lighting and exposed mechanicals

much like a

I was gonna say like a streamers

office.

Much like an

e-boy

stream den.

I got a $50 headphone

folder.

It came with a headset with little cat ears on it.

I do like the headlights though.

Have you seen one of these in the wild yet?

Yeah.

Like you've seen it in the studio.

That was in the wild though.

No I know.

What I think is interesting is it's been

now almost three years

and you would think all the other

Lamborghinis around here you see them.

Well I've only seen

one Scion and it was

the XB.

It's very boxy.

Sean Lee took us to like an auto

detailing spot that is like super

meticulous and very expensive.

Yeah.

That was crazy dude.

And there's a Scion there.

Yeah.

Scion.

And there's also like a Bugatti

Belied.

That was insane.

And it was just in South Bay

or something like that?

It was like Orange County.

Which makes sense.

That's right.

That was crazy dude.

I think there's a lot of

electrified lineup aiming for full

hybridization by the end of this year

and the first fully electric Lamborghini

by 2028.

I think Ferrari

is having some issues with electrification

because like the point of the Ferrari

is the sound right?

You know Ferrari is so well known for their exhaust note.

I don't

know if Lamborghini will have

as hard a time selling

an EV to their customers.

I think it's like

it's not as pure as in my head

is not as strong as someone who's like a Ferrari

period.

It's for different things.

It's for design, comfort, handling

looks, you want to turn heads.

Yeah.

Like if Lamborghini

all they need to do is build something

as like

crazy as a Cybertruck

in terms of looks.

Not like literally looking like a Cybertruck

in that thing whereas Ferrari

they're kind of in a tougher spot.

I don't really think there's

as hardcore of a Lamborghini

purist. I don't think so either.

When you talk about what is an identity of a company

and going through this

episode

the identity of Ferrari is tradition

right? Do what I said

this is what we do

racing

and Lamborghini is

we are going to be on the cutting edge

of design and performance

and it keeps

when people are like

a Lamborghini

SUV that's

sacrilege it's like no

Lamborghini has always been like we are the biggest

and the best and we're going to do everything

over the top and what's more over the top

than

the Urus.

That's innovation

cutting edge so I think that part

of the brand identity looks

that just cutting edge

period I don't think they're going to

have to your point. And they also

time selling

and making it still be a Lamborghini.

The idea of a really insane looking

Lamborghini SUV is

very exciting to me. Yeah and they've

already done it in the 80s

and people are like whoa that's crazy

but I love it you know like and people still

talk about the Rambo Lambo even though

it's just like basically a military vehicle.

And it's sales favorite.

So they sell like 10 of them or something. Yeah they're not many.

Wow

very cool. Yeah because anyway

I agree to that to your point

about having difficulty because oh

it's not a true Ferrari. Oh it's not a true

whatever. I don't think you get

to say that with Lamborghini. Cause if it's different

it is Lamborghini. Exactly. Wow that's

cool. That is really cool.

It makes it way more free.

When James

and Jesse went to Italy

to go visit the Lamborghini factory

they came back and like kind of described it

as like it I mean obviously

it's a fully fledged

manufacturing plant but the attitude there

was more of like a tuner

or like hot rod shop where they're like.

Well it's also when you pick your car

you pick everything wheels

interior

fabric

leather. Well I guess they use I forget

it's a fake leather that they say

it's even better than leather.

It's even better it's a fake leather

than real leather. Well it began as a

rebellious upstart. Lamborghini is now

one of the most profitable and culturally

influential supercar brands on the planet.

Over 10,000 cars are sold

annually and the Eurus SUV

has doubled global sales since its release

in 2018. That's impressive.

From the humble vineyards of

Ferruccio Lamborghini's youth to the

stable Audi Volkswagen leadership today

Lamborghini's bold

spaceship like design has always set it apart

from more conservative brands like Ferrari

and McLaren. Lamborghini is more

than a car maker it's a cultural force

that represents singular performance

extreme design and

unapologetic excess.

Nice. Boom.

Lamborghini's.

Lamborghini baby that's the story

I'm so hype on Lamborghini now.

Yeah. I want that Lamborghini EV

in the lot.

It's just such a different

fundamental ethos from the

beginning. Yeah.

This a cooler dude

that ends up Ferrari.

He's trusting his team more.

He's taking bigger swings and they're paying off

and

yeah.

I just I think it's such a cool company.

All right. Thank you guys so much for listening.

Follow Bart at Bids Bartow. Follow Joe

at Joe G Weber. Follow me and Nolan J. Sykes.

Big thanks to our writer this week

Luke Clomping and thanks to Edgar

and Audrey behind the camera always doing

a great job keeping us rolling here

at past gas and thank you

most of all for listening. We will see you

next week. We're talking

guy named John Fitch.

Don't know what that's about.

You know what that's about. Yeah.

You know I read all these scripts. I know I know you do.

All right.

Well looking forward to that finding out who John

Fitch is

to be a good one. So stick around.

Thank you guys so much for listening. We'll see you next time.

Lamborghini Wasn’t Supposed to Exist

Ferrari 250

Porsche 911

Mercedes-Benz Mercedes 300

Jaguar Etype

Lamborghini 350 GT

Ford Taurus

Lamborghini Miura

Lamborghini Espada

Lancia Stratos

Audi Quattro

Lamborghini Countach

Lamborghini Lm002

Dodge Charger

Lamborghini Diablo

Lamborghini Murcielago

Lamborghini Gallardo

Lamborghini Aventador

American Motors Corporation (Amc) Matador

Lamborghini Huracan

Porsche Cayenne

Lamborghini Urus

Tesla Cybertruck

About this episode

Original notes