My Excellent Lambo Factory Tour

My dealer was kind enough to arrange a Lamborghini factory tour for my wife and me in Italy. We just returned yesterday, and I thought I might share a bit of the experience.

The factory is located in Santa Agata, a tiny little town near Modena and Balogna. The factory is beautiful and very modern, but much smaller than I had envisioned (that's a good thing). When we arrived, we were immediatley greeted by security. Our tourguide was a Lamborghini employee, who was very kind and spoke excellent english. She asked that I not take photos beyond the public viewing areas, which I had expected.

The first stop was a court yard between the factory and the r/d building, where the cars are held when they come off the line. There, like dazzling jewels in the Italian sun were 8-10 G and M cars, all ready for the test drive. In a distant lot, I could see more cars, all awaiting shipment to their various locations.

We then went in the factory itself, and were lucky enough to tour both the G line and the M line. The factory is quite small. Most of the cars on the G line were spyders, I would guess that maybe 15 cars were coming down through the various stations. We watched as a G was tested in a special booth, all four wheels on dyno like rollers, with a large screen in front of the driver showing engine data. The test took the car up to 200 kph, shifts a little below redline.

We toured the leather/interior shop, which was amazing; huge slabs of leather in all colors, and four or five workers as sewing machines working their magic. It smelled great. Very custom and very bespoke in feel.

Next was the engine assembly line. I read once on one of these forums that the Lambo engines were assembled in Hungary. WRONG. I watched as cranks were laid into bare blocks, pistons, ten per tray, were insterted, and so on down the line. The dyno rooms were incredible, we were told that each engine gets dyno time before being cleared for insertion into the car. I also got to watch a engine assembly being lowered into a G spyder. Really cool stuff.

The Lambos are all test driven on the local roads. Several times during our tour, I would hear a G howling past, and saw an orange and a white car being driven at a brisk pace on the road just outside the factory.

The museum was small but interesting, and we bought a few goodies in the boutique. The Euro is strong against the dollar right now, but I couldn't resist a few things from the Lambo shop -- how often do you get to say that you bought your wallet at the Lamborghini Factory in Italy?

Overall, a wonderful experience and a highlight of our time in Italy. We also spent some time in Maranello, but that is a BIG operation compared to Lambo. Felt a little less personal and exotic, in my opinion. Lots of people around the Maranello operation, not very many at Lambo. I think I was told that Lambo has about 70 assembly employees, and that a maximum production, they can produce about 7 cars total per day.

We had hoped to see our G on the line during the tour (I ordered a car that had an April build date) but were told that it had shipped two weeks earlier. That was actually good news. Can't wait for it to get here.

 

Sure-my car is Midas (pearl) yellow, coupe, yellow stiching, sport suspension, titanium wheels, branding package, manual transmission, alcantara seat inserts, no glass over engine (I think the vents look cooler, and weigh less). It will be my second G, I just sold my 05.

 

azferrari,

Nice to hear from you--hope that you are enjoying your beautiful new G. You sure looked cool pulling away the other day, almost brought a tear to my eye. Drop me an email so I can get your souvenir to you. It's not much, but it is from the factory