Background
Ferruccio Lamborghini’s early life proved to be the perfect preparation for the life that followed. He was born into a family of viticulturists, almost immediately immersing him into a farming orientated environment. His early interests, however, seemed to lean more towards farming machinery, and less towards the farming itself. Given this bias, the young Ferruccio studied at Fratelli Taddia technical institute near Bologna.
Like so many of his era Ferruccio’s plans were upended by the advent of the Second World War. In 1940 he was drafted into the Italian Air Force and was dispatched to the island of Rhodes where he worked in the 50th mixed motor unit of the Italian garrison. Despite their German allies turning on the Italians in 1943, Ferrucio was allowed to continue to work and even set up his own repair shop on the island. When the British liberated the island in 1945, however, Lamborghini was arrested as a collaborator.
When he finally got back to Italy in 1946, Ferruccio shrewdly brought his farming and mechanical skills together by buying up military surplus and transforming it into farming machinery. By 1948, Lamborghini Trattori had been formed and Ferruccio had even invented a pioneering fuel atomiser. This enabled the, predominantly Morris, surplus engines used in his tractors to start on petrol before then going on to run on diesel.
Within a few years tractor production was up to 200 units a week and the war surplus had pretty much run out. The L33 tractor of 1951 was, bar the Morris diesel engine, entirely a Lamborghini product marking a significant watershed for the business. It was in 1957, however, that Lamborghini launched the range that was closest to the founder’s heart. The “Lamborghinetta” was powered by a in-house designed and built 2 cylinder engine. These little tractors were economical, powerful and reliable and would prove ideal for light agricultural users like…. viticulturists, for example. Perhaps it was this familial connection that created a special bond. Whatever the reason, it was a “Lamborghinetta” that conveyed Ferruccio’s coffin to the cemetery in Sant’ Agata Bolognese at his funeral in 1993.
