Today would have been the 100th Birthday of Ferruccio Lamborghini. To celebrate the man and his legacy we are posting some of our favorite memories and sharing some of our favorite articles and videos from around the web. Join us in this celebration.
In celebration of Ferruccio Lamborghini’s 100th birthday I thought I would share one of my favorite driving experiences with everyone. As a 16 year old kid living in Southern California there wasn’t much I was afraid of when it came to driving. I helped my dad with construction work for money, one of our projects was building a garage underground for a man living in Reno, Nevada. We built him a beautiful underground garage, and after it was complete, we were tasked with transporting his cars from storage to the new garage.
To my surprise one of the first cars we transported was a beautiful white Lamborghini Countach, as my first experience in a true exotic supercar I was giddy with excitement. Even better was the fact that I got to pilot the beast. So I folded myself into the car and brought the V12 to life. There’s nothing quite like the sound of twelve violent Italian cylinders sitting inches behind your head, ready to kill you at any given moment.
With the burble of Italian glory we were off, the only thing stopping me from opening this beast up was traffic, soon enough we were on a famous Nevada desert highway, long, straight, flat, and hardly a soul in sight. Dropping from 5th to 2nd with a glorious rev match I opened up the throttle bodies and let the beast loose.
Up until this car I had never traveled past 100 miles an hour and the needle was already well buried past 120. 150 hit and I slotted 5th gear with a quick shift, something in the distance was on the side of the road and it was coming up fast. Being a typical teenager I kept the throttle buried. Right around the time I hit 160 I realized that it was a Nevada Highway Patrol officer with a car already pulled over. As I approached him I had seen that he was running back to his car and noticed a dust cloud well behind me now. Knowing I’d been caught I eased off of the throttle and let the car coast to a stop. Roughly 5 minutes later the officer came screaming up behind me.
Expecting the worst I already had the scissor door aimed at the sky, with everything ready for him. Best case I sit in jail, worst case I lose my license forever. But neither happened, the officer liked the car so much that he sat and talked with me about it while the cars I had blown past and likely scared the hell out of, passed me again, so that it looked like he was giving me a ticket at the least. Let off with a warning and a stern reminder as to why doing things like that are dumb, I am forever grateful to that officer for not destroying my dream of ever becoming a racecar driver.
One of these days I’ll get to climb behind the wheel of a perfectly crafted Lamborghini again, and maybe this time I’ll get to flog it around a track rather than the open road. All I know is, I’m forever sold on the magic of Lamborghini. Happy birthday Ferruccio, I hope you’re proud of the direction the company is heading.
