Lamborghini Director of Product Design, at your service.

Remember this?

In the late 1950s, Ferruccio Lamborghini made a fortune manufacturing tractors in Northern Italy. His new found wealth gave him the opportunity to at one point own a Ferrari 250GT. An "aha" moment occured. Rather than simply fitting repurposed racing engines into a grand touring coupe, Lamborghini believed he could do "GT" even better.

The example you see all the way at the top, with the blond hanging out from the window, is the Lamborghini 400GT (this was before Lamborghini began naming his special vehicles after Spanish fighting bulls). The tuned 3.9-liter Bizzarrini V12 made 320 bhp at a considerably relaxed 6,500 rpm. Essentially, although Ferruccio Lamborghini was fond of Ferraris, he considered their engines too loud and too manic to be proper road cars. One would assume then, that while Ferrari sports cars were engine-centric, Lamborghini was concerned about overall real-life packaging.

Throughout the years, the companies have changed significantly yet their ground has stayed the same. Ferrari continues to focus on their racing development but now creates a certain finesse in their cars-- a balanced chassis for driving pleasure. Lamborghini has taken the role of the engine-centric manufacturer, successively creating iconic and dramatic beasts from the Miura, to the Countach, the Diablo, until finally the current Murcielago as well as the expecting Jota/Aventador. When you take a step back, Ferrari is still a race bred mark while Lamborghini is still a street machine that is not concerned with sporting pedigree.

This has led me to a thought. There is room in Lamborghini's line up still, and they deserve to have a GT like their 400GT, Espada and Islero again. I can guarantee that it will sell. When considering a front engine, rear wheel drive sports grand tourer, there's less to worry about in terms of satisfying those that believe an MR is supposed to handle. We all know that the big Lambos have all been pigs, and it's not even like Lamborghini ever cared. If they did, a V10 wouldn't have been their smallest engine.

There is a real opportunity here to just pen out whatever it is Lamborghini believes an Italian Aston Martin should look like. Straight up front engined V12 Italian sex.


Lamborghini, you got the platform.

Do the damn thing. People will lust for it.