Lamborghini

An Italian businessman who had made his wealth in areas such as tractor building decided in the ’60s to take on Ferrari. Ferruccio Lamborghini began his ambitious plan in 1963 – with the charging bull of his birth sign Taurus as the logo – in a town called Sant’Agata, near Bologna, and a year later the 350 GT was born. It was the stunning Miura of 1966, however, that was first to reference a famous Spanish fighting bull and the first put the frighteners on his rivals just a 20-minute drive away, in Modena. It was a practical and beautiful mid-engined supercar, powered by a V12 more advanced than those hitherto produced by Ferrari. The wedge-shaped, scissor-doored Countach then became a supercar superstar of the ’70s and ’80s, while the sand-blasting LM002 V12 off-roader made Lamborghini a hit with Sheiks. The Murcielago was the first ‘Lambo’ produced after Volkswagen had bought the company in 1998, though it was a V10-powered supercar – the 2004 Gallardo – that would become the brand’s biggest-selling model yet. The cars were replaced by the Aventador and Huracan.