At the end of World War II Ferruccio Lamborghini satisfied his desire for fast cars by running the cars made by Fiat. Mr. Lamborghini himself ran a small machine shop at the time but gradually turned to the manufacture of tractors as the major effort and occupation of his enterprise and efforts. Business went so went with the tractor trade and industrial empire that by the age of 60 Lamborghini turned his attention to his real love – building a car himself. It seemed that Lamborghini thought that with his talents he could design, develop and build a better automotive product that either Maserati or Ferrari.

The chassis was multi-tubular, the front mounted engine a 3.5 liter V12 with four overhead camshafts and six authentic Weber carburetors ; driving through the ubiquitous ZG five speed into a limited-slip rear-end it produced 360 horse power and a coil and wishbone independent suspension meant that all power was indeed usable.

The bodywork was a closed coupe designed by the famous Paolo Dallara and featuring retractable headlamps at the leading edge of the now typical flat curve of the Italian sports car. One must remember that this all occurred in 1963, 20 years before anything built in the U.S. – that is other than the Chevrolet Corvette – featured similarly clean aerodynamic lines. Read the rest of this entry »