Six decades ago, a man launched an improbable challenge to the already legendary Cavallino Rampante: by creating his own brand of grand touring cars, to which he had assigned the objective of doing better than Ferrari, Ferruccio Lamborghini began an industrial and human adventure which, after as many brilliant achievements as vicissitudes, continues to this day. Lamborghini: this name, then mainly known to farmers, gradually built its own legend by choosing a very different path from the one gloriously cleared by the Maranello firm. Here, competition played only a very marginal role, and even non-existent at the beginning: it was, quite simply, a question of building the best GTs of the time! Unknown to many today, because eclipsed in the collective memory by the fantastical Miura and Countach that followed, the first milestone in this long history is called the 350 GT...
Pride and Revenge
The story is well-known and you've already read it a thousand times – but it remains delightful, even if it's sometimes difficult to separate legend from fact. A loyal Ferrari customer, Ferruccio Lamborghini, a renowned manufacturer of agricultural equipment, is said to have one day made some harsh criticisms of the reliability of his 250 GT to the Commendatore himself. Sharply reprimanded by Enzo, Ferruccio then decided to start building a car intended to avenge the affront by surpassing the Maranello models… Every legend contains its share of truth, so we won't dwell on the authenticity of the anecdote; The fact remains that the gestation of the very first Lamborghini still resembles a sort of revenge epic, which begins with the recruitment of engineer Giotto Bizzarrini, freshly kicked out of Ferrari after having designed the 250 GTO. Starting from a blank sheet of paper, he designs a magnificent V12 whose existence will last almost half a century, its final iteration powering the Murciélago!
Could anyone do better than Ferrari?
Of course, we were still a long way from that when the 350 GTV prototype was unveiled with great fanfare at the 1963 Turin Motor Show. Designed by Franco Scaglione, the machine proved as promising as it was unfinished—or vice versa, depending on your point of view. The first attempt was certainly not a masterstroke, but the car's overall characteristics testify to the seriousness of its designers, who therefore opted for the costly development of a custom engine instead of taking the easy route by, like Iso or Facel Vega, sourcing their power from the United States, tireless purveyors of powerful, inexpensive engines, but with a level of ruggedness far removed from Ferruccio Lamborghini's ambitions in this area. In fact, the twelve-cylinder Bizzarrini, revised and corrected by Giampaolo Dallara – who would create his own workshop a decade later – presents a technical sheet that, in some respects, seems designed to taunt Ferrari. Because the V12 from Sant’Agata Bolognese, whose 3464 cm3 displacement dictated the car’s name, has a four-overhead camshaft distribution, a refinement then forbidden to the 275 GTB! The 280 hp it claims places the production 350 GT (the “V” disappeared along the way but, as one might expect, the car is no less fast) at the level of the best. In addition to the aforementioned Ferrari, the Lamborghini thus goes to measure itself against the Maserati Mistral, Aston Martin DB4 or Jaguar Type E – in other words, the cream of the GTs of the time.
Exclusively on the road
In less than three years, the revolutionary mid-engined Miura will turn the tables, gaining a clear lead over Ferrari and, in doing so, forever cementing the Lamborghini name in the firmament. But for now, the 350 GT still has everything to prove, especially since, unlike Ferrari or Jaguar, the young Automobili Lamborghini company has decided to forgo any racing involvement and therefore cannot count on the irreplaceable prestige of victories at Le Mans or Formula 1 to boost sales of its road cars. The car, however, does not lack assets since, in addition to the undeniable nobility of its engine, it can count on a more sophisticated chassis than its rivals – four independent wheels were still the exception at the time and, overall, the Lamborghini was well born, even if its times were still far from equaling those of the Ferrari 275 GTB mentioned above, significantly faster than its young competitor. Nevertheless, with its very personal design, with atypical proportions and revisited by Touring before entering production, the new Italian GT, built according to the “superleggera” principle developed by the Milanese coachbuilder, made an impression and very quickly found its place in this elite category where more than one small transalpine manufacturer had failed. In fact, nowadays, apart from Lamborghini, only Ferrari and Maserati have managed to survive the crises and ups and downs that would mark the 70s and 80s…
The eternal dance of a debutante
Produced in 120 units until 1967, the 350 GT – which would quickly evolve into the 400 GT 2+2 presented in the spring of 1966, equipped with a V12 rebored to 4 liters and more spacious thanks to a wheelbase thirty centimeters longer – is not the Lamborghini best known to the general public, even if, like its descendants, it managed to immediately move away from a certain classicism to impose a strong stylistic identity. This singularity, in very diverse forms, would persist in the decades that followed, whether we think of the Islero – a direct descendant of the 350 and 400 GT –, the Espada, the Jarama or the Urraco, not to mention the fantastical Countach, competitor of the Ferrari BB and Testarossa while embodying their exact aesthetic antithesis. Getting back behind the wheel of a 350 GT today is not just about spending a wonderful, always too brief, moment at the controls of an exceptional automobile; it is also about inhaling with emotion the very specific scent of a form of childhood, of the heroic age of folklore, before adulthood comes, with its flashes of brilliance and its annoyances. A historic milestone but just waiting to rack up the miles, the car is well-deserved: last year at Rétromobile, Artcurial sold a 1965 example for just over €400,000. Perhaps it's time to go and make eyes at your banker...
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