Who Owns Lamborghini?

Ferruccio Lamborghini was born in 1916 in Renazzo di Cento, in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. He was a successful industrialist, having founded Lamborghini Trattori in 1948 to manufacture agricultural tractors using surplus military engines, and later Lamborghini Bruciatori, a heating systems company. By the early 1960s he was wealthy enough to own multiple Ferraris.

The origin story of Automobili Lamborghini is disputed but consistent in its key elements. Ferruccio allegedly complained to Enzo Ferrari about the quality of the clutch on his Ferrari 250 GT. Ferrari reportedly dismissed him, saying a tractor maker should not tell a car maker how to build sports cars. Whether the exchange occurred precisely that way or not, Ferruccio publicly stated that it was the motivation for founding his own car company.

Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. was registered in 1963 in Sant'Agata Bolognese, a small town between Bologna and Modena, deep in Italy's automotive heartland. Ferruccio hired Giotto Bizzarrini, who had recently left Ferrari along with several colleagues in an internal dispute, to design a V12 engine. The first production car, the 350 GT, was presented at the Turin Motor Show in October 1963.

The 1966 Miura is widely regarded as the world's first mid-engine supercar. Its transversely mounted V12 and bodywork by Bertone established the visual and mechanical template that other manufacturers would follow for decades. The 1971 Countach, also styled by Bertone designer Marcello Gandini, went further with its scissor doors and extreme wedge proportions; it remained in production until 1990 and defined the visual language of supercars into the 1980s.

Ferruccio Lamborghini sold his controlling interest in 1972 to Swiss investors Georges-Henri Rossetti and Rene Leimer, citing financial pressure and a desire to focus on his other businesses. He never returned to the automotive company. The brand passed through several hands over the following decade. A Swiss businessman, Walter Wolf, became a significant shareholder in the mid-1970s. The company entered bankruptcy in 1978 and was purchased in 1981 by the Mimran brothers, Patrick and Jean-Claude, who invested in rebuilding production capacity and launched the Countach 5000S.

Chrysler Corporation purchased Lamborghini in 1987 for approximately 25 million dollars, the first American ownership of the brand. Chrysler invested in a new model, the Diablo, which launched in 1990, but sold the company in 1994 to a group of Indonesian investors connected to the Sedtco Group. That ownership was short-lived. In 1998, Audi AG acquired Lamborghini and integrated it into Volkswagen Group's luxury portfolio.

Under Volkswagen Group ownership, the brand's trajectory changed significantly. The Murcielago arrived in 2001, succeeded by the Aventador in 2011. The Gallardo, launched in 2003, was Lamborghini's first genuinely high-volume model, with approximately 14,022 units built before production ended in 2013. Its successor, the Huracan, launched in 2014 and had surpassed 20,000 units by 2022.

The biggest single commercial shift was the 2018 launch of the Urus SUV. Before the Urus, Lamborghini produced roughly 3,500 to 4,000 vehicles per year. The Urus pushed annual volume past 8,000 units and later past 10,000. In 2025 the brand delivered 10,747 vehicles, a record. The Aventador was replaced by the Revuelto in 2023, which uses a plug-in hybrid V12 system producing 1,001 horsepower. The Urus S received a plug-in hybrid variant, the Urus SE, in 2024. The Huracan's successor, the Temerario, was announced in 2024 and began customer deliveries in Q1 2026, completing the brand's hybrid lineup transition. The Temerario uses a twin-turbo V8 hybrid system, replacing the Huracan's naturally aspirated V10.

In February 2026, CEO Stephan Winkelmann confirmed that Lamborghini had canceled plans to launch a fully battery-electric model for the foreseeable future, citing insufficient demand in the ultra-luxury segment for full EVs. In the second half of 2026, Lamborghini launched the Urus SE Performante, the most extreme expression of the Urus family.