In the works

Lamborghini brought its customer racing programme in-house in 2015 and since then it’s not looked back, but what does the future hold for the famed Italian supercar maker? Racecar visited its home in Sant’Agata Bolognese to gain an insight into its motorsport plans and philosophy

- ANDREW COTTON

Fair to say that Lamborghini has a reputation for the strange and the wonderful in terms of design, and reliability. The Italian supercar manufacturer took a major step forwards in terms of the latter when it became part of the VAG Group alongside Audi, with which it shares much of its technology in production cars. As part of a wider group, and with German philosophy towards quality control and process, the company is slowly turning towards volume production, having sold 8200 cars in 2019 including 5000 Urus SUVs.

Thankfully, the Germans have kept their hands off the design philosophy, and so both the road and racecars retain a lot of the traditional Lamborghini styling – even the Urus carries the Lamborghini design cues, even if there is nothing else Lamborghini about it. There is clearly a demand for the SUV, though, and the production line has been Germanified to reflect the larger volume required. Autonomous robots ferry parts to various work stations, the chassis and engines are prepared on similarly autonomous platforms, and the entire process resembles a hospital more than a car factory. There are no radios blaring in the factory, and even the walkways are clearly adhered to lest you hold up one of these autonomous trolleys.

Lambo’s soul

But although Lamborghini is clearly proud of its new facility, it was clear that the build shop for the Aventador was the place they were most proud of. Indeed, stepping into the workshop where these supercars were produced provided the first clue that this was old school. A trolley was being towed by a truck driven by a human who very nearly ran us over. Sticking to the walkways was also a necessity here, but was because of threat to injury rather than holding up production. This was much more fun.