Every great brand has its own creation story. Lamborghini’s begins with a faulty clutch, an angry customer and a proud Enzo Ferrari. And it ends with a prototype shown in Turin in 1963 without even an engine under the bonnet: the Lamborghini 350 GTV.
Photo: Classic Virus / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
From tractors to sports cars
Ferruccio Lamborghini was born in 1916 into a farming family near Ferrara. After the war he began building tractors from military surplus. His company, Lamborghini Trattori, became within a few years one of the largest makers of farm machinery in Italy, and Ferruccio became rich.
Like many wealthy Italians of the time, he bought sports cars, including several Ferraris. According to the famous story, his Ferraris kept having clutch trouble. When he took one apart, he found it was the same part he used in his tractors, but Ferrari charged ten times as much for it. He went to complain to Enzo Ferrari himself, who reportedly told him to stick to his tractors and leave sports cars to people who knew how to build them. Ferruccio decided to prove him wrong.
A prototype in record time
In 1963 he founded Automobili Lamborghini in Sant’Agata Bolognese, just a few kilometres from Ferrari’s Maranello. For the engine he hired Giotto Bizzarrini, the engineer who had left Ferrari after working on the 250 GTO. Bizzarrini designed a 3.5-litre V12 with four camshafts, more complex and more powerful than anything Ferrari had in its road cars.
The body was designed by Franco Scaglione. The 350 GTV was a low, long coupé with hidden headlights, very modern for its time. But it was prepared in such a hurry for the Turin show in October 1963 that the engine would not fit under the bonnet. The car was displayed with the bonnet closed and, it is said, with ballast in place of the engine so that it sat correctly.
Photo: Simon Davison / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
From the GTV to the 350 GT
Reviews of the 350 GTV were mixed. Ferruccio realised he needed a more civilised car for his customers. The young engineers Gian Paolo Dallara and Paolo Stanzani made the engine milder and more reliable, and Carrozzeria Touring in Milan redesigned the body. The result was the 1964 Lamborghini 350 GT, the brand’s first production car. About 120 were built, followed by the larger 400 GT.
Photo: dave_7 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
What became of the 350 GTV
The 350 GTV remained a one-off. For years it was forgotten in a storeroom, before it was restored and finally fitted with an engine. Today it is one of the most precious pieces of Lamborghini history and appears from time to time at concours events.
Three years after the 350 GTV, Lamborghini unveiled the Miura and changed the world of sports cars for ever. The tractor maker had made good on his word. And it all began with a prototype that could not yet move.
P.Kefalas