Lamborghini

Though commonly called Lamborghini, Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. is an Italian car manufacturer that is headquartered in the small town of Sant’agata Bolognese. It was founded in 1963 by tycoon Ferruccio Lamborghini, whose ambition it was to create a touring car with class and refinement. Lamborghini’s first vehicles, the 350 and 400 GT models, were duly noted for their comfort, style and power. In the mid 60s, Lamborghini won critical acclaim for its Miura sport coupe, which started the mid-engine design trend of that era.

After ten years of enormous growth, the company fell on hard times, amid the oil embargo and the poor economy of the early 70s. Lamborghini came to be owned by Chrysler after three other ownership changes and a bankruptcy. However, Chrysler didn’t succeed in bringing Lamborghini back to profitability, and they sold it to an Indonesian conglomerate in 1994. The company continued to fare poorly throughout the 1990s, until it was sold to Audi AG in 1998. Audi AG is a division of Volkswagen, a German automaker. The Audi acquisition led to a long period of increased profitability for Lamborghini, and the company’s sales increased ten times over the first decade of the new millennium. Sales have recently declined amidst the world’s sluggish economy, leading Lamborghini CEO Stephen Winkelmann to forecast continued poor sales for the company.

The manufacture of Lamborghinis continues to go on at the plant in Sant’agata Bolognese, where the vehicle and engine assembly lines run in the same factory. Every eyar, the plant creates less than three thousand total of the four models that Lamborghini offers: the V10 Gallardo roadster and coupe, and the V12 Murcielago coupe and roadster. Occasionally, Lamborghini offers special editions of its four flagship models, such as the Superleggera and the Reventon packages.