Lamborghini's factory in Sant’Agata Bolognese, Italy, has been building supercars for 60 years, and the automaker has decided to celebrate this by publishing a look back at the factory's history.
Company founder Ferruccio Lamborghini already had a successful tractor business prior to starting Lamborghini, but branching out into cars required a new manufacturing facility. Sant’Agata Bolognese is close to Ferruccio Lamborghini's hometown of Cento. Once the site was chosen, construction was completed in just eight months in late 1963. Lamborghini unveiled a prototype of its first production model, the 350 GTV, on Oct. 20 of that year.
Lamborghini steadily expanded the factory, adding in-house assembly of transmissions and differentials in 1966, and the first facilities for working with carbon fiber in 1983. Production expanded from 67 cars in 1965 to 425 in 1971, fell to 55 cars in 1979 due to an economic downturn, and rebounded to 470 cars in 1987. Lamborghini was also building marine engines at the time, completing 300 that year.
In line with changes in technology and government regulations, Lamborghini added research and development departments for electronics, composite materials, and emissions controls in 1990. The automaker came under the control of Audi in 1998, and the German automaker commissioned a major renovation of the Sant’Agata Bolognese facility that was completed in 2001.
Lamborghini Sant’Agata Bolognese factory
More recent additions have emphasized sustainability. In 2011, the automaker opened Lamborghini Park, with bee colonies to protect the honey-producing insects, as well as carbon-capture experiments conducted in partnership with the Municipality of Sant’Agata Bolognese and the Universities of Bologna, Bolzano, and Munich. A dedicated assembly line for the Urus SUV, which began building vehicles in 2018, earned the highest LEED Platinum certification for environmental impact, as did the factory's finishing department and an office building.
The factory currently has over 2,000 employees and built 9,233 cars in 2022, according to Lamborghini. The latest model to roll out of the venerable factory is the Lamborghini Revuelto, the Aventador successor featuring a 1,000-hp plug-in hybrid powertrain including a V-12 engine and three electric motors. This is in addition to a newly developed carbon-fiber chassis, and 13 drive modes, encompassing electric all-wheel drive and a Recharge mode to keep a charge in the 3.8-kwh battery pack.