The company was the creation of Ferruccio Lamborghini, an industrialist whose name it perpetuates, although he sold his last interests in it in 1974. From the outset, his venture into automobile manufacture was seen as a challenge to Ferrari, and towards that end he established a green-site factory a few miles from Modena , attracted talented young men, and defined a policy aimed at a range of up-market cars.

However, his marque soon gained the super car image that has been simultaneously both a strength, and a sapping weakness. Lamborghini has a very strong presence and has built up a loyal customer following, yet at times its survival has been in doubt, for the super car market is tiny — the share of it that Lamborghini might have expected at any one time has often been insufficient to sustain the company, the more so as it has not displaced its great Italian rival, in sales or public esteem.

Ferruccio Lamborghini's original intentions were not carried through to create a consistent policy, and that damaged its business when general market conditions turned down. The factory created for the car company was over-size and over-equipped for the one-model super car ranges that were to come. In that perspective, the dazzling Miura perhaps led to super car tunnel vision, whereas Lamborghini had always preferred to develop other types in parallel 'businessman's express' models, for example and seemingly never liked the mid-engined super cars. In the early years, balanced ranges seemed to be taking shape. But some models lacked flair, or maybe just seemed pedestrian alongside the milestone Miura and Countach super cars. There was promise in the smaller sports/GT cars of the 1970s and 1980s, although this theme was not always followed through logically.

Ferruccio Lamborghini never wavered from his decision not to commit his car company to racing, and as far as pitching a works team into the big time, into competition with Ferrari, was concerned, that was no more than sensible. However, a competitions department or a customercar race preparation department could have generated useful business, and a wider sales base.

The early cars, 350GT and 400GT 2+2, were cited as evidence that a racing background is not essential to success as a manufacturer of fine high-performance cars, although this overlooked the careers of Bizzarini and Dallara, for both came from companies which had strong competition histories (Ferrari and Maserati respectively), and their personal inclinations. Over-generalizing, problems built up after Lamborghini had launched another venture at the end of the 1960s, as if to signal his declining interest in cars, and then bought the farm to which he was to retreat when he sold his remaining shares in Automobili Ferruccio Lamborghini SpA in 1974. His first Lamborghini team broke up too designer Giampaolo Dallara, his successor Paolo Stanzani and development engineer Bob Wallace, who was always able to generate much sympathetic coverage for all things Lamborghini among English-writing journalists, all left.

The men who followed in the 1970s were worthy, but hardly exciting characters Franco Baraldini, soon succeeded as chief engineer by Marco Raimondi, and Luigi Capellini, who was briefly general manager. Other moves reflected company changes, but Ubaldi Sgarzi, who joined the company in 1967 and became its sales manager, served on through all of these changes, into the 1990s, when he was obviously under-impressed by the one-model (Diablo) product line.

Business problems overshadowed personnel changes. Widespread industrial unrest in Italy affected the Lamborghini companies in the late 1960s, when the founder started to distance himself from the concern, and there were particular problems with Lamborghini Trattrice (tractors), which was eventually to be sold to Fiat. The inspired Miura and the fact that sales topped 400 cars for the first time in 1970 made the car company attractive, and a viable means to raise cash, so a controlling interest was sold to Swiss industrialist Georges-Henri Rossetti. Illness meant that he played little part in developing or running the company, although that had been his declared intention. The oil crisis that came in 1973 dealt another blow, and in the following year Lamborghini sold his remaining holding to another Swiss, Rene Leimer. From that point, references to 'Lamborghini' signify the company only, not its founder.

While Rossetti and Leimer soon moved to sell Lamborghini - Canadian Walter Wolf being courted as a possible buyer there were promising developments. Baraldini and Capellini brought in new business ideas for a specialist manufacturer, notably leading to the association with BMW in the Ml project and the Cheetah programme with Mobility Technology International.

Dr Alessandro Artese served Lamborghini well during his brief stewardship, approving the Countach development that led to the S model, when production of the original had fallen to 16 units in 1978, and bringing in Giulio Alfieri, formerly technical director of Maserati, to oversee that project and the Jalpa, and to run the plant. A German consortium seemed set to take on the company late in 1979, but negotiations with the Mimran industrial group from 1980 were to prove fruitful (although it was said that Patrick Mimran was the only serious contender at the decisive sale moment in 1981). So Nuova Automobili Ferruccio Lamborghini SpA was established. The Mimran brothers' ownership lasted until 1987, when the Chrysler Corporation took over -one move in a series of US acquisitions of European specialists. One of the first fruits of this development was a four-door Lamborghini, the Portofino concept car. More importantly, Chrysler underwrote Lamborghini Engineering and an entry into Grand Pr ix racing that was at least partly in the name of Chrysler. That was not an outstanding venture, but from its Modena base, Lamborghini Engineering undertook research for Chrysler and contributed to the Diablo, and then under another new management began to develop projects such as the MegaTech world modular engine (WME) powerplant range. At one stage it was even involved in a racing bob-sleigh project!

A prospectus issued with a Diablo release at Monte Carlo in January 1990 now seems wildly optimistic: 'The Diablo launch closes a period of consolidation and opens one of expansion that will lead to production in excess of 1000 units per year by 1992,' Chrysler had begun to lose interest in the early 1990s, as losses mounted the factory was virtually closed for more than three months in 1992. When it did open that year, production ran at a trickle and losses were heavy. The next year was also lean, and rumours of another sale began to circulate. Chrysler let it be known that Lamborghini was available, but not at a knock-down price.

There was some surprise when Lamborghini was bought by the Indonesian-controlled MegaTech group late in 1993, for a rumoured £26 million -just a little more than Chrysler had paid for the ailing company in 1987. A leading figure in this was Tommy Suharto, son of the Indonesian premier. Within months, former Lotus Chief Executive Mike Kimberley joined from GM's Malaysian subsidiary, and moved to Sant'Agata as President of

Lamborghini. One of his first key appointments was that of ex-Lotus designer Peter Stevens, who was to undertake a similar role at Lamborghini.

At the time, Lamborghini relied solely on the slow-selling Diablo with sales forecast to be fewer than 250 in 1996 — and while rumours of new models, or at least a re-skinned Diablo, began to circulate, developments take time . . .A first step was to build another racing base, with the Diablo one-model series in 1996, largely for hobby racers, but a more realistic enterprise than another dabble in the prestige waters of Grands Prix.

Incidentally, Lamborghini's marine V12s have been very successful in power boat racing. Built in capacities from 5.2 litres to 9 litres, these were selling at rates approaching 300 units a year by the second half of the 1980s, after they had powered the winning boats in the 1985-86 European of-shore championships. A decade later (in 1994) Lamborghini gained the World Class 1 Off-shore Championship. And the 7.2 litre marine V12 had proved useful in Lamborghini off-roaders, when customers wanted something more than the LM002's 5.2 litres

While Lamborghini's overall fortunes had been erratic, its representation in important overseas markets had also been inconsistent in the USA and Britain there was not always a concessionaire, for instance. For many years Portman Garages, then Portman Lamborghini, was the British distributor. The latter ceased trading early in 1992. Portman Concessionaires took its place later in the year. At the end of 1994 Lamborghini Great Britain Limited was formed as an independent company wholly owned by Porsche

Cars Great Britain Limited, with dedicated facilities at Porsche's British HQ. Such an arrangement would have been inconceivable a quarter of a century earlier. The lure of super cars remained as strong as it had been in those earlier days, although motor industry soothsayers in the mid-1990s predicted that the type as it was then would not survive long into the 21st century. Lamborghini would have been nothing if it had not built super cars, with performance capabilities way beyond most drivers' abilities, on most roads, in most situations. The company attitude was always realistic, roughly on the lines of telling the buyer of a very expensive motor car what he wanted to be told - maybe the car could not quite reach the speed claimed, but if the dials told the owner that it could and had, he would be happy. So Lamborghini's claimed

performance figures have to be read with this proviso in mind, and indeed some of the production figures might also be read with a mental question mark forming Be that as it may, MegaTech bought a leading super car manufacturer. Its directly responsible subsidiary M-Power had to face up to a need for massive cash investment if Lamborghini was to achieve more than survival, even if it was to survive at all; if new high-profile models were to be developed and introduced by the end of the century; if the marque was to resume its long-lost position as a natural challenger to Ferrari and its mystique was to be restored.

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