The brand's style icons: From Miura to Huracán

Look­ing back on the past 50 years, one model stands out as the ul­ti­mate clas­sic Lam­borgh­ini – the Miura. Built from 1966 to 1972, it was the first rad­i­cal sports car from San­t’A­gata Bolog­nese and the first Lam­borgh­ini to bear a name from the world of bull­fight­ing. The two-seater was one of the most pow­er­ful cars of its time with up to 283 kW (385 hp) of power, and it set leg­endary records for top speed. Its ul­tra-flat body con­cealed in­no­v­a­tive tech­nol­ogy – a trans­verse mounted V12 made the Miura the first mid-en­gine sports car for street use.

At 4.39 me­ters (14.40 ft) long, 1.78 me­ters (5.84 ft) wide, but only 1.05 me­ters (3.44 ft) tall, the two-seater ap­pears to crouch over the as­phalt, while the flow­ing lines of its alu­minum body ex­press con­cen­trated power. Low-pro­file fold­ing head­lights char­ac­ter­ized the front end; the dri­ver would ac­ti­vate one switch to open them up­wards, then a sec­ond switch to turn them on. Orig­i­nally de­signed to be a low-vol­ume prod­uct to show­case tech­nol­ogy and styling, the Miura un­ex­pect­edly be­came a sales suc­cess. In­stead of the tar­geted to­tal pro­duc­tion of 50 units, over one hun­dred of the cars were pro­duced at the quickly ex­panded plant – every year.

The suc­ces­sor to the Miura was also a suc­cess – the Coun­tach was in the prod­uct line-up from 1974 to 1990. Its styling based on the strict use of wedge-shaped lines and the now lon­gi­tu­di­nally mounted V12 mid-en­gine proved to be time­less. In the Di­a­blo, which fol­lowed the Coun­tach, large sec­tions of the body were made of car­bon fiber re­in­forced poly­mer (CFRP) for the first time – a high-end ma­te­r­ial in which the brand has con­tin­u­ally built up its com­pe­tence right up to to­day. The Di­a­blo VT of 1992 was the first Lam­borgh­ini to of­fer all-wheel drive, which is now a stan­dard fea­ture of all Lam­borgh­ini mod­els.

In the V12 se­ries, the Di­a­blo was fol­lowed at first by the Mur­ciélago and the Reven­tón; the lat­ter in an ex­clu­sive lim­ited se­ries. The Aven­ta­dor made its de­but in 2011, and at the be­gin­ning of 2013 the brand in­tro­duced an open-top ver­sion. The Lam­borgh­ini Aven­ta­dor LP 700-4* ac­cel­er­ates from 0 to 100 km/h (62.14 mph) in 2.9 sec­onds and can reach a top speed of 350 km/h (217.48 mph). A key com­po­nent of its tech­nol­ogy pack­age is the CFRP mono­coque with the char­ac­ter­is­tic scis­sor doors. Its drive unit is an ex­tremely high-revving and torque-strong nat­u­rally as­pi­rated V12 en­gine with 6.5 liters of dis­place­ment and 515 kW (700 hp) of power. The CDS cylin­der de­ac­ti­va­tion sys­tem and the in­no­v­a­tive Stop & Start sys­tem with high-per­for­mance ca­pac­i­tors, known as su­per­caps, en­hance its ef­fi­ciency.

The Lam­borgh­ini Ve­neno, the ex­clu­sive new model from the 2013 Geneva In­ter­na­tional Mo­tor Show uti­lizes CFRP high-end ma­te­r­ial. It is sold in only three units. With its 552 kW (750 hp) of power and ex­cel­lent aero­dy­namic ef­fi­ciency, this Lam­borgh­ini is a race car for the streets. At the end of 2013 the Road­ster Ver­sion was pre­sented in Abu Dhabi on the Ital­ian air­craft car­rier Cavour as the ex­cel­lence of Ital­ian car in­dus­try.