1969 Lamborghini R230
“ Another outstanding build by Garage 961, the only restoration centre in the world authorised by the Museum Ferruccio Lamborghini. ”
Comprehensively restored and in full working order.

Background
After serving as a mechanic in the Regia Aeronautica during WW2, Ferruccio Lamborghini set up a small car and motorcycle repair shop near Modena before branching out into the manufacture of tractors using surplus military hardware and, initially, Morris engines.

Within a few years tractor production was up to 200 units a week and the war surplus had pretty much run out.

In 1957 Lamborghini launched the range that remained closest to the founder’s heart - the ‘Lamborghinetta’, which was powered by an in-house designed and built 2-cylinder engine.

These little tractors were economical, powerful and reliable and would prove ideal for light agricultural users such as viticulturists.

By the mid-1950s Lamborghini Trattori SpA of Cento, near Bologna, had become one of the largest agricultural equipment manufacturers in Italy, a happy state of affairs that no doubt prompted Lamborghini's declaration, “A tractor a day keeps the misery away!”

Flush with cash from his success in tractors and air conditioners, and following an argument with Enzo Ferrari about an unsatisfactory clutch in his recently purchased Ferrari 250GT, Ferruccio decided to start building his own luxury cars in 1963.

The rest, as they say, is history.

In 1967, at the Verona Agricultural Expo, Ferruccio Lamborghini’s son, Tonino, presented a bold new departure from the firm’s signature orange and blue tractor livery.

Back at the factory, the new livery – dark blue with white bonnets and mud-guards – was at first met with a degree of scepticism. Some workers were heard to mutter, “We build tractors, not boats.”

But the elegant new colour scheme chimed perfectly with the emerging international fashion tastes of the late 1960s and buyers signalled their appreciation with their wallets and cheque books.

It also served to emphasise that Lamborghini was and would remain a business determined to set rather than follow design trends – whether in cars or tractors.

There is a clear evolution from the more rounded and curvaceous lines of the earlier blue and orange liveried tractors to the sharper and more angular 230R.

The same contemporaneous progression in design language can be seen in the stylistic shift from the Miura to the Countach.

Introduced in 1967, Lamborghini's 230R was derived from the popular 1R model, but with increased power and slightly larger tyres.

The 230R was one of the last tractors designed and built under the direct ownership and guidance of Ferruccio Lamborghini.

Although no longer in family ownership, Lamborghini Trattori is still in business and building tractors today.

The well-known Cotswold farmer and home-brew lager salesman Jeremy Clarkson has one.

When Ferruccio died in 1993 fans might have expected his final journey to have been made atop one of the marque’s fire-breathing V12 supercars.

Instead, and entirely appropriately, it was one of his eponymous tractors that carried Ferruccio’s coffin to the cemetery in Sant’ Agata Bolognese.

Overview
The stunning Lamborghini 230R tractor presented here is one of the very first examples ever built.

From new, it belonged to a single owner near Mantua, Lombardy.

After a lifetime of honest labour and service, this 230R has undergone a sensitive, expert and comprehensive restoration by Garage 961, the only restoration centre officially recognized by the Museo Ferruccio Lamborghini for historic Lamborghini tractors.

The restoration was commissioned by collector Ermes Formilan, who is a personal friend of Tonino Lamborghini and very well-known to us.

It was carried out with his customary, trademark insistence on absolute historical accuracy, meticulous attention to detail, and with instructions to retain as much originality and authenticity as possible.

Estimate: £17,000 - £20,000

View Current Bid Price HERE