2023 marks the 60th anniversary of Ferruccio Lamborghini setting out to build better cars than Enzo Ferrari after getting fed up with the poor quality of the car he had purchased from his future rival. In the intervening years, Lamborghini has produced some of the most iconic cars of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The brand also had a lot of ups and downs, going through multiple owners in its first 35 years including none other than Chrysler. But the last 25 years under the ownership of Audi as part of the Volkswagen Group, Lamborghini has finally had the resources and stewardship to thrive and is now forging its path into the future by incorporating electrification.
The first half of 2023 was the best yet for the brand with global revenue of €1.421 billion and sales of 5,341 units of the Urus and Huracan, the only two models currently available although that will be changing in the coming months. Soon Lamborghini will start shipping the Revuelto to customers, the newest in a line of mid-engine V12 supercars dating its lineage back to the 1966 Miura. The U.S. continues to be the largest single market for the brand with 1,625 vehicles delivered so far in 2023. Europe, the Middle East and Africa as a region got 2,285 units.
The Revuelto is a very different beast from those predecessors. While the Miura has a transverse mounted V12, starting with the iconic Countach, the V12s were mounted longitudinally with the transmission ahead of the engine and then feeding power back to the rear wheels (and on more recent models the front as well). That layout isn’t possible with the Revuelto because the center tunnel where the transmission used to sit now contains a lithium ion battery. The Revuelto is the first Lamborghini to get power from a plug, something that will be available on every Lamborghini going forward.
Coming in 2024, the Urus SUV is also getting a plug-in hybrid powertrain although that one will likely be more closely related to the system in the Porsche Cayenne rather than the bespoke system in the Revuelto. When the replacement for the Huracan arrives in the next few years, it too will have a charging port as will a yet to be announced fourth model.
There are no details that can be shared yet on that machine, but CEO Stefan Winkelmann assures us it will be a true Lamborghini. With sales up 4.9% in the first half of 2023 and revenue up 6.7%, the question is how much can Lamborghini continue to grow? The brand is certainly not aiming to be another Porsche. The German brand sold over 167,000 vehicles in the same period.
“We are not selling mobility, these are dream cars, so it’s important that your desire stay high,” said Winkelmann. “We’re never running for peaks. An order bank like we have will help us navigate through rough waters for a period of time.”
This is the advantage for a niche brand of being part of a group like Volkswagen. Winkelmann and the team are able to leverage some of the technical resources of the group where it’s appropriate such as the architecture of the Urus, or the shared components between the Huracan and Audi R8 while still offering something unique and different from all the other brands.As the shift to electrification accelerates, elements like batteries that can be sourced from VW group factories and software capabilities from Cariad will become increasingly important. As a result Lamborghini doesn’t have to chase growth at all costs to survive.It can maintain a degree of exclusivity and still thrive.
While electrification will undoubtedly be a part of Lamborghini in the 2030s and beyond, what becomes of those amazing V12 and V10 engines? Will the Revuelto be the last of its kind? Maybe, or perhaps not. Corporate colleagues at Porsche have been actively working on sustainable e-fuels not created from petroleum, but extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. High end brands including Porsche, Lamborghini and others how that e-fuels may be the solution to allow their combustion engines to be part of the automotive landscape for a long-time to come. But in order for that to happen, mass production and distribution of these new fuels will have to start sooner rather than later.
Another area that has grown significantly during the 25 years as part of the VW Group is the brand’s participation in motorsports. Lamborghini’s racing efforts prior to 1998 were limited including a short-lived entry into Formula 1 during the Chrysler ownership period. Since 2009, the single-make Super Trofeo series has become very popular with championships in Europe, Asia, North America, and the Middle East along with an international championship.
The Huracan GT3 has been also extremely successful in multiple series globally and next year it should be competing at Le Mans as the World Endurance Championship moves from the GTE to GT3 rules for production-based machinery. But the Huracan won’t be the only Lamborghini running in the famed 24 hour race. The factory supported Iron Lynx team will be running the recently revealed SC63 prototype in both the WEC and IMSA Weathertech Championship and Winkelmann says customer cars may be available in future years.
Lamborghini has transformed from being a struggling manufacturer of perhaps a few hundred iconic vehicles a year to a brand that can consistently build thousands of the most sought after machines in the world for both the street and track.
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