Lamborghini has been manufacturing insanely powerful cars since 1963, but who owns the brand?
Lamborghini’s ownership trail is long and storied, but today the brand is firmly owned by the Volkswagen Group. The Italian supercar masters sit under the Audi division within the Volkswagen Group’s ranks.
Read on to learn more about Lamborghini, its legacy, and where it sits today.
Building The Brand
Lamborghini is an exciting brand, there’s no secret about that. Since the early sixties, they’ve been building some of the most powerful cars on the planet.
Although they started slowly and faced excessive competition, they’ve climbed to the heights of the pile. What originally started as a defiant competitor to Italian powerhouse, Ferrari, blossomed into a household name.
When it comes to the supercar stakes, there are few vehicles as stunning as Lamborghinis. They’re sleek, high-tech, high-powered, and turn heads wherever they’re driven.
However, it hasn’t always been happiness and success for the Italian manufacturer. Their history, although storied, is pitted with struggle and some downfalls.
Ferruccio Lamborghini started out with lofty goals in mind. He wanted to compete with Enzo Ferrari, an engineering genius who’d actually been his friend.
Although, the friendship wasn’t set to last forever. Lamborghini found some issues with Ferrari’s vehicles, which he was a reported die-hard fan of.
As the story goes, Lamborghini manufactured tractors, air-conditioning, and heating systems. He’d made his fortune in these industries, and became a purveyor of Ferrari’s vehicles.
The latter had founded their business in the late forties, in Maranello, Italy. They were always well established and selling many vehicles by the time Lamborghini found their feet.
Being an engineer himself, Ferruccio Lamborghini decided to offer advice to Enzo Ferrari on his builds. It was ignored, and Lamborghini took it upon himself to build his own road cars.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Person to Person
However, just a decade after their motor vehicle endeavors began, Lamborghini would see collapsing sales records. There was a massive financial crisis all around the world, and it hit the luxury car manufacturer particularly hard.
Ferruccio Lamborghini was forced to sell up and retire, although he wasn’t exactly penniless. That was in 1974, and by 1978, Lamborghini was filing for bankruptcy.
The name changed hands again in 1980, being bought by the Mimran brothers for around three million dollars. It was one of these brothers, Patrick, who was said to have saved the entire organization.
Lamborghini was once again sold in 1987, this time to the American-based firm, Chrysler. They’d boast ownership of the supercar brand for around seven years, before selling it on yet again.
It passed into the possession of a Malaysian investment group, who, four years later, sold it for the final time.
This time, it came into the possession of the Volkswagen Group, one of the biggest motoring companies on the planet. Today, the Volkswagen Group owns Audi, Bentley, SEAT, Volkswagen, Lamborghini, Porsche, Bugatti, and Skoda.
The Italian supercar brand was placed snugly within the Audi division but was firmly owned by Volkswagen as an overhead. They’d certainly managed to make the most of the brand, as in 2019 it was valued at around eleven billion dollars.
Manufacturing Excellence
Under the guidance of the Volkswagen Group, Lamborghini has seen constant and tangible success. They’ve released world-breaking cars and have continued to innovate exponentially.
In 2020, their offerings consisted of the Urus, Huracan, Aventador, and some limited, special edition runs. Their line-up was iconic, instantly recognizable, and dramatically expensive.
Sitting near the top of the pile was the engineering marvel, the Lamborghini Sian. This $3.6 million ‘hypercar’ served as the first hybrid in the Lamborghini roster, and could go from zero to sixty in just 2.8 seconds.
We discussed the Sian at length in a recent article.
The most affordable Lamborghini (brand new, of course) was the Huracan Evo RWD. This 5.2-liter beast started at just $179,000 and still had more than enough power under the hood to rival higher-end models.
Standing out in a class of its own was the Lamborghini Urus – the first reputable Lamborghini SUV. An engineering masterclass in itself, the five-door Urus could carry four adults and still hit almost two-hundred miles-per-hour.
So, from the struggles of financial adversity, the ‘Italian stallion’ was well and truly reborn.