The Celebration of the Bull(s)

 

The Celebration of the Bull begins here

 

Welcome one and all to the spectacular journey we are about to take. I decided to celebrate the bull - Lamborghini lineup because there is so much that has evolved with this company that it should not go without its day in the spotlight. Note that Lamborghini has never been interested nor focused on racing pedigree like many other supercar manufactures are, they were about style and outrunning whatever was on the market that year. Hot Wheels has covered most of the pertinent models and we shall take a journey around them. Take note of the design of the cars as we go along. There is a distinct progression of design!

 

In The Beginning

The official date that Lamborghini gives itself for introduction is 1963. Lamborghini was started by Ferruccio Lamborghini [1]. European sports cars were a niche owned by another animal at the time. Lamborghini wanted in and the bull was unleashed. There are many models that Hot Wheels have not covered but the ones they did, they covered well. Muscle cars were taking the streets of the US and the wealthy had eyes elsewhere for sports cars. Now that Lamborghini has been established in the automotive world, we should go back and look at some of the early models first.

64-66: 350GT: V12 rear wheel drive sports car. Not the icon they were looking for but then again, first to market cars rarely are. It is the beginning and for that, it is significant.

 66-68: 400GT: Refinements to the 350GT brought in the 400GT. V12 again rear wheel drive. 247 were produced [2].

 

66-72: Miura P400 [3] – the most recent casting by Hot Wheels – only found in the ID series and I was unable to find one. However, the Miura took Lamborghini in a new direction and we begin to see the evolution take shape. I believe the Lamborghini of today was clearly inspired by this beautiful car.

 

68-78: Espada. V12, 1200 made [4]. Take the time to look this one up. By the design, I see Lamborghini knew what was happening in the US and hoped to gain some fans with this one. I am now one for sure.

 

68-69: Islero. V12, 225 cars made [5]. This was a refinement of the 400GT. May have been a little to refined but it does improve the looks of the 400GT.

 

70-76: Jarama. V12. 328 cars produced [6]. Not sure how to celebrate this one, it has the looks of the Espada but just didn’t have that flash – you will soon see what I mean by that.

72-79: Urraco. V8! 791 produced [7]. The Urraco was meant to be an affordable offering in the emerging market of European sports cars segment and was meant to undermine the leaders of that segment. Aside from the reduction in power, we see the earliest signs of what we have today from Lamborghini, and this could be the one that sparked a dream in every young boys mind, releasing the bull wherever it was able to go.

 

Lamborghini has changed hands a few times, Chrysler owned it for some time, a major tech group bought it for some time and currently Lamborghini is owned by the Volkswagen group which also owns names like Audi, Ducatti and Bentley. That’s a lot of muscle.

Now that we have had our historical discussion of the real cars (and there are other versions among them, I kept it short and relevant), lets talk about Hot Wheels Lamborghinis. As I noted earlier, the Miura is the earliest model represented and also the latest release (ID series only). The earliest casting is the subject of the next post and by now, most of you already have a good idea what it is. The most interesting part of this journey will be evident very soon. Lamborghini was going to be a name to remember and the design revolution that happened is claimed to be the benchmark for the supercars of today. 

Side note: there is a Matchbox version of the Miura that was released late 2020 in a beautiful mint green color and may be the nicest Miura diecast that I have seen to date.

Thank you,

Collector Quentin

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photographs of Lamborghini models used herewith were retrieved from google using the creative commons licensing.

Lamborghini and model names are property of Audi AG, a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamborghini   retrieved 01-01-2021

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamborghini_400_GT retrieved 01-01-2021

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamborghini_Miura   retrieved 01-01-2021

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamborghini_Espada   retrieved 01-01-2021

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamborghini_Islero   retrieved 01-01-2021

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamborghini_Jarama  retrieved 01-01-2021

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamborghini_Urraco   retrieved 01-01-2021