Lamborghini - Everything You Need to Know | Up to Speed

Lamborghini: The House of the Raging Bull

I love Lamborghini because it's a bad ass company – the house of the raging bull. The definition of the poster car. The very essence of Italian. Except it's also been Swiss and American and Indonesian and Malaysian, and now it's German.

And all of this started with a Taurus who had a weird bull obsession, was really good at building tractors, and hated Ferrari. This is everything you need to know to get up to speed on my favorite car company, Lamborghini!

Foo-roo-gee-oh? Foo-roo-kee-oh.

Ferruccio Lamborghini had made a fortune building tractors – dude had a tractor empire. When you're rich in Italy, what do you do? You buy a bunch of Ferraris. They were race cars for the road, and that's where things started to go wrong. The interior sucked, and the clutches kept going out.

Which, when that happened, you gotta tow the thing to Maranello to get it fixed – it was molto annoying. Lamborghini felt that for the chunk of cash he was throwing down for these things, they should be perfect. He complained to Enzo Ferrari about this, and let's just say it didn't go over well.

Lamborghini is everything you need to know to get up to speed on my favorite car company, Lamborghini!

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- Oh my God!♫ I love Lamborghini 'causeits a bad ass company- The house of the raging bull.The definition of the poster car.The very essence of Italian!Except it's also been Swiss and Americanand Indonesian and Malaysianand now it's German.And it all started, because a Tauruswith a weird bull obsession,was really good at buildingtractors and he hated Ferrari.This is everything you needto know to get up to speedon my favorite car company,Lambor (*fkn*) ghini!Foo-roo-gee-oh?Foo-roo-kee-oh.Ferruccio Lamborghini had madea fortune building tractors.Dude had a tractor empire.What do you do whenyou're rich A F in Italy?You buy a bunch of Ferraris.They were race cars for the road, as inthe interior sucked and theclutches kept goin' out.Which, when that happened,you gotta tow the thing toMaranello to get it fixed.Molto annoying.Lamborghini felt that for thechunk of cash he was throwingdown for these things,they should be perfect.He complained to Enzo Ferrari about this.I buy a lot of cars from you,I made all these tractors.And Ferrari was like,"who the (bleep) is this guy?"Get the (bleep) outta here, dude."Ferrucciowas pissed.So Lamborghini and his tractor boysmodified one of his Ferrari 250 GTsand the sh*t wasbetter than the stock one.And Lamborghini was like,"(bleep) Enzo Ferrari, tractorboys, we're making cars now."He recruited the best of the bestin the Italian Auto Industry,including ex-Ferrariengineer, Giotto Bizzarrini.Lamborghini ordered himto make a V12 engine, butspecifically one thatcould be used on the road.Not some crazy, unreliable race engine.So immediately, Bizzarrini built a crazy,unreliable race engine.This thing could rev up to 11,000 RPMand made 400 horsepower, which was insane!He wanted to push the engineeven further, but Ferrucciowas like, "Nah, This is a road car."They de-tuned it for the road,and the legendaryLamborghini V12 was born.A true masterpiece!So good that they continued to usevariants of it until 2010.They continued to slave awayin the barn or whateverand in 1964, the 350 GT popped out.To name the car, he basicallyjust added 100 to the nameFerrari 250 GT.I (bleep) love this dude.The press thought it was great.Stylish, fast, and well built.Suck it, Enzo!(crowd cheers)The 350 GT was updated tothe 400 GT a year later.So, Lamborghini had done it.He'd made a genuinely good sports car.It really couldn't get any better.Unless of course, they couldsomehow single handedly inventan entirely new category of vehicle, butwhat are the odds of that happening?Ferruchio Lamborghiniwanted to make road cars,not crazy race cars like Enzo Ferrari,but his engineers insecret decided to spec outa race car anyway.As they worked on it, they cameup with some bat shit ideas.A mid-engine, rear-wheel drive,sports car that was light,planted, and it has the V12!To everyone's surprise, whenthe engineers pitched the ideato Lamborghini, he waslike, do it!I mean, he figured it mightbe a good marketing stunt.He even guessed theymight sell a few models,like 50, total, tops.The result was theLamborghini Miura, named afterDon Eduardo Miura, a famous bull rancherand Lamborghini's friend.It's basically one of themost influential cars ever.With the massive engineright behind the cockpit,it was the very first of themodern concept of super car.In fact, nearly all modernsuper cars use some variationof the basic Miura layout.That's how influential it was and is.It's probably the best looking car ever.I mean, it has eyelashes.It's like the automotive version of me.Oh, one other small detail,it was the fastest carin the (bleep) world!Sup, Ferrari?Oh no, you heard about my Miura?Yeah, I mean, I guess it'sthe fastest car in the world.Whatever.Still dating Trent, or whatever?It's cool I just want you to be happy.Success is the best revenge.In 1968, they debuted theIslero, named after one ofDon Miura's bulls.Kind of looks like an AstonMartin with popup headlights.Roger Moore owned one.James Bond.The next year they introduced the Espada,a big, funky, super,70's looking Gran Tour,and possibly the mostpractical Lamborghini ever.Finally!A Lamborghini that I canput my kids in the back of.It was named after a famousbull fighter's sword.Ferruchio Lamborghiniapparently loves three things:cars,bulls,and his sweet friend, Don Miura.The smaller V8 powered Jarama?Ha-ra-mah, huh-ra-mah?Followed and was really whenLamborghini's famous wedgeshapes started to come into focus.Lamborghini was well andtruly off to the raceswith a great product line up,the hottest badge in town,and increasing sales, but somehowfor all his success,tractor-man had forgottento make a profit.Oops!With mounting money troubles,the man behind the Miura solda 51% stake in his companyto George Henry Rosetti,a Swiss business man and personal friend.This guy frickin' loves his friends!Things only got worse whenin 1973 the oil crisis struckand rendered gas-guzzlingsuper-cars obsolete.Having proven to Enzo Ferrarithat he could make great cars,and tired of wrestling withall the financial problems,Ferruccio Lamborghini retired in 1974,selling his remainingstake to Renee Lamer,a friend of Rossetti's.Under new management with anoil crisis and money troublesmounting, there was nothingfor the company to do,except?To release the craziestdarn car ever made!**80s beat intensifies**The Countach in 1974 reallymarked the moment whenLamborghini the companystopped worrying about beingsensible and just let theirimaginations run wild.Shaped more like a rocketship than a car, the Countachfeatured a bold, angular form,and was wider than Chris Christie.Altogether it was astandout car for the decade.Armed with that good oldV12, now up to 4 liters,the Countach became an icon of excess.I.E. success.But most importantly, itintroduced the world to the mostsignificant piece of artto ever come out of Italy:Lambo-doors.The Countach wasn't even soldin the United States until1982 where it legally hadto be fitted with theseugly front bumpers.As always.The Countach never failedto capture the imagination,and was a smash hit in Americawhen it finally got here.Lambo's next car was theSilhouette which was basically anupdated Urraco and anattempt at building a moreattainable Lamborghini.Unfortunately, it was plaguedwith reliability issues andfailed to cast much ofa shadow on the market.Meanwhile, still wrestlingwith financial problems,Lambo took a contract to develop SUVsfor the American military.I know man.Life is weird.They created a fewprototypes of the Cheetah,unlike anything they had ever done before.The military never bought themand the contract never madethem any money.At the same time, a deal withBMW to produce racing carsfell through when Lamborghinifailed to make any.That one's on them.With no other options left, thecompany filed for bankruptcyjust like my dad.The solution, as always, more Swiss men.Specifically, the brothersJean-Claude and Patrick Mimrin,who were sugar magnates.What's a magnate?A rich boy?My dream is to become aneducational automotive video magnate.The Countach continued to selland the company introducedan updated version of theSilhouette called the Jalpa.Jall-pa.Helpa?Jalpa.The Swiss sugar boys lovedtheir new company and decidedit was time to make an all new car!What manner of awesome sportscar did they make you ask?Another SUV!Duh!They revived the Cheetah militaryproject and turned it intoa civilian super luxe, superfast SUV called the LM002,or the Rambo Lambo.But unfortunately in the 80's,the world just wasn't ready for it yet.And so once again,Lamborghini's engine stalled,and the company was in dire straits.After Chrysler's bargain binpurchase for $25 million.You heard that, right?$25 million, for an entire car company.The now technically Americancompany completed work on theirreplacement to the legendary Countach.The Diablo!Ya ever heard of it?It's named after a famous bird.Just kidding, it's named after a bull.The 485 horsepower, V12 Diablowas the fastest car in theworld when it debuted.It was a statement onthe new, new Lamborghini,and it was a roaring successwhen it was released in 1990.It also did this really weirdthing that was like totallynew for Lamborghini, it made money.Lambo finally turned a decent profit.Things were going well soimmediatelythings fell apart.Once the shine of the Diablo wore off,and newer, faster supercars hit the market,sales plummeted.Chrysler sold Lamborghini toa Malaysian conglomerate whobasically didn't do anythingexcept continue to producethe Diablo.But,in 1998, enter ze Germans.- Booya, booya!- To celebrate my 8th gradegraduation the Volkswagen group,my other favorite car company,took ownership of Lamborghini.This is the beginningof modern Lamborghini.Ze Germans, wanted a brandnew car to represent a brandnew chapter for thenow German Lamborghini.And so the company gotto work on a replacementfor the Diablo.2001!Enter the Murcielago,named after the originalbull in Miura's stable.Armed with a 572 horsepower V12,still based on that original engineas well as that signature,angular wedged form.Lamborghini Marcielago broughtthe house of the raging bullinto the 21st century!And 2 years later,it got a baby brother.For the first time in decades,Lamborghini unveiled a secondproduct to their lineup with the Gallardo.It was a more affordable,totally unaffordable carand Lamborghini reallyheld themselves backand only put a V10 in it.Now, that's restraint.The Murcielago sold well,but the Gallardo sold just a,As in, by the end of itsrun, 50% of all Lambosever sold were Gallardos.Not bad, baby Lambo.Not bad.Lamborghini had itsbest year ever in 2008.All the down turns, allthe bad news were over.The only thing that could bringLambo down now, would be aworldwide financial crisis andglobal stock market collapse.Fortunately, none of thosethings happened in 2008.(bleep), it did!- Oh my God, okay, it's happening.Everybody stay calm!- Suddenly, orange supercars didn't seem like a greatinvestment anymore.Audi and the Volkswagengroup kept their faith aliveand didn't sell Lamborghini.Lamborghini was like that foster kidwho had bounced around fromdifferent homes and thenhe got in trouble and he was like,are you gonna give me back?Sandra Bullock was like,"Give you back?We love you!It's a great story andtheir faith was rewardedas sales started to rebound in 2011.Helping them out that year,was the release of their newest car:The Aventador,named after, what else?A bull, they're all named after bulls.Replacing the decade oldMurcielago, the Aventador leanedeven harder into the angularaesthetic and looked more likea stealth fighter, than a car.It also carried a brand new,built-from-scratch V12 engine.As Lamborghini finally retiredGiotto Bizzarrini's original masterpiece,after 50 long years of service,they gave it a gold watch andit moved to Florida where itnow owns a Jimmy Buffet restaurant.And right now, this minute,Lamborghini seemed to be doingpretty well for themselves.After all these yearsand all those stumbles,the company is stillhere and still producingbatsh*t crazy super-carsthat are icons of excess.Under Audi Volkswagen, theirownership has been stablefor almost 20 years.Everything's great!Which means they're probablygonna tank, right about.That's everything you need toknow to get up to speed on themarvelous Lamborghini.On that note, everyoneplease send me a dollarso I can buy a Lamborghini.Don't worry.The WRX episode is coming up.I swear to Colin McRae.Thank you guys so much for watching.This is our first timecovering a big subject.What did we miss?What other car brands,influential car peopleshould we do an up to speed about?What track, what racing series?Make sure that you comment,like, share, subscribe.Up to speed every Thursday.Only on Donut.