Lamborghini needs no introduction. Since its founding in the mid-1960s, the Italian automaker has built supercars that have become cultural icons: The genre-defining Miura, the iconic Countach, and the jaw-dropping Aventador. These vehicles all wear the name of founder Ferruccio Lamborghini. A serial entrepreneur, Lamborghini parted ways with his car company before many of its greatest hits had ever been sketched—but his influence is still felt in modern Lamborghini today. This is the story of the man who let the bulls out of Sant’Agata.

Ferruccio Lamborghini was born on April 28, 1916, to a family of grape farmers in Renazzo, in the Cento region of northern Italy. The oldest of five boys, from a young age Ferruccio showed more interest in the machinery around the farm than he did in agriculture. As a boy, he left primary school to enroll at Fratelli Taddia, a technical school near Bologna. His father had promised him the family farm, but Ferruccio was enamored with ma