After world war II, Ferrucio Lamborghini opened a garage in Pieve di Cento. In his spare time, Lamborghini modified an old Fiat Topolino he had purchased, the first of many that he would own over the years. He made use of his mechanical abilities to transform the homely city car into a roaring 750-cc open-top two-seater, and entered the car in the 1948 Mille Miglia. His participation ended after 700 miles (1,100 km) when he ran the car into the side of a restaurant in the town of Fiano, in Turin. As a result, Lamborghini lost his enthusiasm for motor racing, a sentiment that would endure for many years to come.
Lamborghini's business interests were located in the region of Emilia-Romagna, where the provinces of Ferrara, Bologna, and Modena intersect.
For years, Italy's industrial output had been dedicated to the war effort, neglecting the production of agricultural equipment that was desperately needed for Italy's postwar economic reconstruction. Lamborghini built a tractor for his father using spare parts, including a six-cylinder Morris engine, a General Motors transmission, and a Ford differential. Antonio's friends soon clamored for their own examples of Ferruccio's design. Working from a stock of surplus Morris engines and leftover military hardware, Lamborghini went into business building tractors in 1948, when he opened Lamborghini Trattori S.p.A. in his Pieve di Cento garage.
Beginning with a model called the Carioca, by the mid-1950s, Lamborghini Trattori was producing over 1000 tractors per year; over the course of the decade, Lamborghini became one of the largest agricultural equipment manufacturers in the country, with his black-and-white tractors becoming a familiar sight in Italy. In 1959, Lamborghini opened a oil heater factory, Lamborghini Bruciatori S.p.A., using technology acquired on a visit to the United States. The company later began building air conditioning units, changing its name to Lamborghini Calor. He also sought to move into the business of building helicopters, but failed to secure a license to do so from the Italian government.
Lamborghini's increasing wealth allowed him to purchase faster, more expensive cars than the tiny Fiats he had tinkered with during his youth. He owned cars such as Alfa Romeos and Lancias during the early 1950s, and at one point, had enough cars to use a different one every day of the week, adding a Mercedes-Benz 300SL, a Jaguar E-Type coupé, and two Maserati 3500GTs. Of the latter, Lamborghini said, "Adolfo Orsi, then the owner of Maserati, was a man I had a lot of respect for: he had started life as a poor boy, like myself. But I did not like his cars much. They felt heavy and did not really go very fast."
In 1958, Lamborghini traveled to Maranello to buy a Ferrari 250GT, a two-seat coupé with a body designed by coachbuilder Pininfarina. He went on to own several more over the years, including a Scaglietti-designed 250 SWB Berlinetta and a 250GT 2+2 four-seater. Lamborghini thought Ferrari's cars were good, but too noisy and rough to be proper road cars, categorizing them as repurposed track cars with poorly-built interiors.
Period Ferraris had spartan interiors, lacking the plush appointments Lamborghini felt were essential to a gran turismo car.
Lamborghini found that Ferrari's cars were equipped with inferior clutches, and required continuous trips to Maranello for rebuilds; technicians would secret the car away for several hours to perform the work, much to Lamborghini's annoyance. He had previously expressed dissatisfaction with Ferrari's aftersales service, which he perceived to be substandard. Lamborghini brought his misgivings to Enzo Ferrari's attention, but was dismissed by the notoriously pride-filled Modenan.
After successfully modifying one of his personally-owned Ferrari 250GTs to outperform stock models, Lamborghini gained the impetus to pursue an automobile manufacturing venture of his own, aiming to create the perfect touring car that he felt no one could build for him. Lamborghini believed that a grand tourer should have attributes that were lacking in Ferrari's offerings, namely high performance without compromising tractability, ride quality, and interior appointments. A clever businessman, Lamborghini also knew that he could make triple the profit if the components used in his tractors were installed in a high-performance exotic car instead.
After successfully modifying one of his personally-owned Ferrari 250GTs to outperform stock models, Lamborghini gained the impetus to pursue an automobile manufacturing venture of his own, aiming to create the perfect touring car that he felt no one could build for him. Lamborghini believed that a grand tourer should have attributes that were lacking in Ferrari's offerings, namely high performance without compromising tractability, ride quality, and interior appointments. A clever businessman, Lamborghini also knew that he could make triple the profit if the components used in his tractors were installed in a high-performance exotic car instead.
.......... reference and read more detail Lamborghini Wikipedia
