Ferruccio Lamborghini Quotes
101 Ferruccio Lamborghini Quotes
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[On him in 1948 entering 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.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
[On his own personal cars in the early 1950’s] 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.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
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.
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.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
[On Jaguars] I only ever had one of those, a very early E-type coupe. 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. 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.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
[On choosing 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.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
[On early day’s on whether he tried an Aston Martin?] Yes, but I did not like it. [On debating that DB Astons were considered great supercars of the Fifties and sixties] 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.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
[On Ferrari’s] I had three or four of them. The Ferrari was a very good car, I must admit, the best I had had so far apart from the Mercedes 300SL. After I got my first Ferrari, my other six cars - Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Mercedes, Maserati, Jaguar were always left in the garage.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
[On the types of Ferrari’s he owned] In 1958 I went to Maranello for the first time to buy a 250GT coupe, the two-seater by Pininfarina. After that I had one, maybe two, 250GT Berlinettas, the short wheelbase car from Scaglietti. I did like that one very much. It was ahead of its time, had a perfect balance and a strong engine. Finally I bought a 250GT 2 + 2, which was a four-seater by Pininfarina. That engine was very strong too and it went very well.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
All my Ferraris had clutch problems. When you drove normally, everything was fine. But when you were going hard, the clutch would slip under acceleration; it just wasn't up to the job. I went to Maranello regularly to have a clutch rebuilt or renewed, and every time, the car was taken away for several hours and I was not allowed to watch them repairing it. The problem with the clutch was never cured, so I decided to talk to Enzo Ferrari. I had to wait for him a very long time. 'Ferrari, your cars are rubbish!' I complained. Il Commendatore was furious. ‘Lamborghini, you may be able to drive a tractor but you will never be able to handle a Ferrari Properly.' This was the point when I finally decided to make a perfect car.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
[On the beginnings of Lamborghini modifying Ferrari’s] To start with, I bought a bigger clutch from Borg & Beck and had it fitted in the tractor factory workshop. Then we discarded Ferrari's cylinder heads, which were rather simple affairs with just a single overhead camshaft and 12 rockers. I had them replaced by heads of our own design with twin cam shafts. We then put the engine back in the 250GT and fitted six horizontally mounted carburettors, just like on the 350GT two years later. It was already quite a good car. Several times I used to wait for test drivers from Maranello, with Prova MO plates on their cars, at the entrance to the motorway near Modena. After some time we would be doing 230, 240kph [145-150mph] and then I would start to pull away from them - my Ferrari was at least 25kph faster than theirs thanks to our four-cam conversion. 'Hey, Lamborghini, what have you done to your car?' they would ask me later 'Oh, I don't know' I used to answer with a grin!
Ferruccio Lamborghini
[On whether he had any contact with Enzo Ferrari after the launch of his own GT car in late 1963] One day in Modena I was entering a restaurant when I recognised Ferrari sitting at one of the tables. As I passed I tried to greet him, but he turned his head away and pretended to be talking to the person next to him. He was ignoring me!… I used to have contact with Adolfo and Omer Orsi of Maserati, Renzo Rivolta of ISO, even Alejandro de Tomaso. But Ferrari never spoke to me again. He was a great man, I admit, but it was so very easy to upset him.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
I preferred the Jarama to all the others, because it is the perfect compromise between the Miura and the Espada. The Miura is a sports car for the young at heart who want to go like hell and love to be seen. Myself, I considered the Miura too extrovert after a while. In turn, the Espada was my Rolls-Royce: still quite fast, but also large and comfortable. The Jarama is the perfect car if you just want to have one car
Ferruccio Lamborghini
I thought the Urraco the ideal car for women who love to go fast. And the Bravo I planned as the car for lovers… [‘Why?’] Because my friend Bertone was going to tint all the glass completely black!
Ferruccio Lamborghini
[On who decided the character of future Lamborghini’s in the sixties?] Difficult to explain, personally I thought it important to launch a new car every year to show that we were still here and very active. Look: in 1963 we had the 350GT. In 1965 the 350GT Spider and the Miura. chassis. In 1966 there were the 400GT and the Miura. In 1967 the Espada. In 1968 the lslero, and in 1969 the Islero GTS. In 1970 the Jarama and Urraco. In 1971 the prototype Countach. In 1972 the Jarama GTS. In 1973 the production version Countach.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
I finished off my Mille Miglia in an inn, which I entered by driving through a wall.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
[On the Lamborghini Urraco] My little jewel.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
[In 1968 on the Lamborghini Islero - A] Businessman’s car.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
[On his superiors being impressed with his mechanical skills and an almost uncanny ability to repair tanks and cars that no one else could fix during World War II] My ability was largely due to having been the first person on the island to receive the repair manuals, which I memorised and then destroyed so as to become indispensable.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
Every time I went to Modena, everyone there seemed to take a malicious pleasure in making me hang around waiting. Ferrari's answer to my complaint on that score was that one day he had kept the King of Belgium waiting, so Mr Lamborghini, the builder of tractors and boilers, really had no cause to object.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
I was never able to obtain a reinforced clutch for my Ferrari. Finally I'd had enough. I slammed the door and vowed I would build my own car. The way I wanted it. And sturdy!
Ferruccio Lamborghini
Everybody who knows me will tell you that this decision didn't come as a surprise to them. Mechanics was in my blood. It's in the blood of everyone who is born in Emilia, the province that was blessed by the gods of the automobile, and where I was born in 1916 into a family of modest farmers.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
After the Second World War I managed a small factory that manufactured exercise equipment for Italian beauties who yearned to keep their figures. Business wasn’t good, however, because at that time Italian beauties were yearning chiefly for enough food to fill their stomachs - and thus I found myself with plenty of free time to spend on my souped-up Fiat 500 race car…
Ferruccio Lamborghini
I found myself with plenty of free time to spend on my souped-up Fiat 500 race car, which no longer looked much like a standard Topolino, and to which I owe my first commercial success. I had installed an overhead valve, high compression Lamborghini cylinder head in it, baptized the result the Testa d'Oro, then sat back and waited for all the owners of wornout Topolino sports cars to beat a path to my door. That cylinder head was their salvation.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
I entered my little Fiat barnstormer in quite a few races after the war. In 1948 I even attempted the Mille Miglia, in the 750cc class, with Baglioni as my teammate. Everything went like a dream for three-quarters of the race-until we ran off the road.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
In 1949 I made the transition from sports to agriculture when I established my tractor factory. Italy was then in the throes of reconstruction, and she needed us. We turned out six tractors a day.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
In the 1960s, I changed course again and invested my profits in a plant that manufactured boiler burners.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
In the back of my mind, I had never stopped thinking about the Ideal motor car. By 1963 it was ready. All I had to do was construct a plant to build it.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
[On the first 10 years of Lamborghini] Ten golden years during which wealthy customers lined up to purchase a Lamborghini. I had never imagined I could sell so many.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
When we launched the Miura… our plan was for fifty cars. But, by the time the model was discontinued almost eight years later, one hundred Miuras had rolled off the Sant'Agata line… And its customers had paid cash for a jewel which they knew on the day of purchase would not be theirs until after a long year of patient waiting. What better proof of their confidence?
Ferruccio Lamborghini
In 1963 I wasn't the only one who was dreaming about the Lamborghini. An entire team of engineers, as brilliant as they were opinionated, was also dreaming about it. They included Gianpaolo Dallara, Paolo Stanzani, Giotto Bizzarrini and others whose names would remain associated with the car for some time to come. Almost all of them were former Ferrari employees.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
Modena is the real cradle of the automobile - or perhaps cauldron is a better word, a broth of engineers being concocted there who loved their trade and who plied it in an environment where competition was so keen that in a very short time the best had left the others behind.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
[On Lamborghini engineers] I didn't hire them, I merely offered them an opportunity. The opportunity came with a five-year contract attached. There was nothing really wonderful about those conditions, but that did not stop these engineers from putting in long workdays which rarely ended before ten o'clock at night. That's what you call enthusiasm.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
During these golden years we also benefited from the advice of an engineer who worked days in the testing department of Alta Romeo while moonlighting for us. I'm not going to tell you his name because he's still working for them.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
If I had to catalogue my engineers, I'd say that [Gianpaolo] Dallara was tireless and extraordinarily brilliant, but utterly unaware of the business aspect of our adventure… [Paolo] Stanzani, in contrast, was a great engineer, too, but one who watched the pennies. He shaved always expertly - wherever he could shave.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
[On Gianpaolo Dallara not being as business savy] The fact that a crankshaft required a day’s work at the forge, for example, didn't faze him at all.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
At the outset my demands were as clear as they were simple. I wanted a compact, elegant car with twelve cylinders of high cubic capacity, four carburetors and large valves. A sturdy machine, with drysump lubrication. And that's how the first version of the 350 GT was born. In all objectivity, I feel it was superior to the Ferrari sedan of the same period. It was more powerful and, above all, more flexible.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
A modern, clean, efficient machine, without concession to tradition. All this was due, perhaps, to the fact that we had no 'a priori’ technique. We started from nothing…
Ferruccio Lamborghini
We started from nothing, in a factory designed like a laboratory for scientific experimentation and which incidentally, was far more modern than the Maranello plant was at that time!
Ferruccio Lamborghini
I called upon Franco Scaglione to build the body of the very first Lamborghini. I liked his execution, but I recognized that his bodies were largely for show. For the assembly line 350 GT we went to Touring Zagato who built the bodies for three or four cars. He was followed by Nuccio Bertone.
Ferruccio Lamborghini
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