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Ferruccio Lamborghini was a very successful business man who owned various businesses although his main line of business was building and selling tractors. Ferruccio's philosophy was to work hard in the morning and enjoy himself in the afternoon. One day while racing his Ferrari with his close friend Enzo Ferrari he told him that he didn't quite think that his car was good enough! Enzo took it the wrong way and replied "what would you know about building sports cars, you only know how to build tractors"? Ferruccio felt insulted and decided to build himself his own sports cars. At first everybody laughed at his big ideas. But in 1963 he opened his state of the art factory in Sant' Agata in Bolognese about 25km from Bologna.
Ferruccio Lamborghini's love of bulls was so strong that he would often visit Don Eduardo Miura who was the owner of a famous bull ranch in the region of Seville and who bred several species. It was this passion that led him to name several of his cars after various breeds of bull which were reared on this ranch. In 1966 at The Geneva Motor Show an early prototype car called the P400S received so much attention that it went in to production under a different name as the Miura a 4 litre car with 280 bhp which is named after a savage breed of Bull bred by Don Eduardo Miura himself, and several variations followed including the SV Concept, Roadster, SV, and the Jota A replacement for the Miura was to become the Islero 400GT and Islero 400GTS a 2+2 coupe which was built between 1968 and 1969 and was named after the bull that killed the famous matador Manolete in 1947.
The Espada which is the Spanish word for Sword appeared in 1968 at the Geneva motor show and was designed by Marcello Gandini of Bertone the famous car designer who designed several cars for Lamborghini Other cars which had names related to bull fighting were the Jalpa which made its debut at the Geneva Auto Show in 1981 and was named after a breed of bull. In 1990 Diablo was named after a famous bull fight in 1869 when the Duke of Veragua's raging bull was in an epic battle with El Chicorro.
Some of the more modern supercars of this era include the Muircéilago who was named after the legendary bull in 1879 whose life was spared by Matador El Lagartijo for his amazing performance in the arena and who survived more than 28 strokes from the estoc at this point the matador decided to spare it its life which is very unusual in bull fighting. Gallardo was the name of one of five famous castles of the fighting bull breed, and in 1943 the Reventon was named after the famous bull that took the life of the Mexican torero Félix Guzmán, and finally the 2008 concept car called the Estoque which is named after the estoc or sword in English language which is used to kill the bull in contest.
Although there was one very special Lamborghini supercar which wasn't connected to the name of any bull or bullfighting but could quite possibly be referred to as Madonna herself. This was of course the Countach, this came about when famous car designer Giuseppe Bertone first set eyes on the car. He was almost speechless except for one word which he managed to utter! This word was of course Countach which is often said as an act of astonishment and quite often used by Piedmontese men when they first set eyes on a beautiful woman.
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